Raley's Taps Aldata To Take Guesswork Out Of Category Management In 133 Stores

Atlanta, GA - Aldata Solution, a leading provider of software solutions for the retail industry, announced recently that Raley's Family of Fine Stores has enhanced its category management with Aldata's Apollo Space Optimization products. The grocery chain, which operates 133 grocery stores in California and Nevada, relies on Aldata to optimize many departments, aisles and categories of retail space across its four distinct brands of stores. Through its use of Aldata's products in collaboration with its Rapid Implementation Program (RIP), Raley's has achieved an industry-leading speed to shelf – on many occasions analyzing and adjusting retail space up to three times faster than its competitors.

Raley's Family of Fine Stores is a 74-year-old supermarket chain that operates the Raley's, Bel Air, Nob Hill Foods and Food Source stores. Critical to the success of the chain is its ability to manage merchandising strategies while ensuring the right mix of products are at the store shelf to meet customers' needs. Raley's has accomplished this by deploying Apollo micro space planning, automated optimization, planogram database and Web publishing solutions from Aldata. The products provide Raley's with complete control to develop schematics and planograms to most effectively use shelf space. Plans are specific to each store configuration and allow for the addition, removal and modification of products on a month-to-month and store-by-store or cluster basis.

"Category management used to be a cumbersome, mostly manual process that was ultimately left to the individual stores or merchandising teams to interpret and implement from the most common size schematics. While sufficient at the time, it was not a precise method for merchandising," said Rick McGill, schematic manager for Raley's. "Apollo Space Optimization is a breakthrough suite of products that are easy to use and easy to understand and have had a significant impact on our business. We've had a long-standing relationship with Apollo and continue to benefit from each of the new products it brings to market."

Aldata's Apollo Space Optimization suite enables Raley's to run ‘what-if' scenarios and quickly make decisions that mean the difference between generating new revenue and avoiding losses, while delivering the highest level of customer service. For example, during a remodel at one of its stores, Raley's made critical decisions regarding the reduction and expansion of certain sections that will result in an annual sales savings of $60,000 at just one location. Raley's uses Apollo on an ongoing basis for store-specific and cluster merchandising questions both large and small, that will save thousands of dollars per store each year.

"For nearly 75 years, Raley's has been a pioneer in the supermarket industry. From creating the first program of food safety and sanitation practices storewide, to developing the first program to test for pesticide levels in produce. When it comes to technology, they've held a leadership position as well," said Shaun Bossons, senior vice president at Aldata, Apollo Solutions Group. "It's gratifying to see their success and to know that Apollo's flexible, scalable and affordable products have played a considerable role in this achievement."

Aldata's Apollo Space Optimization is a collection of powerful, easy-to-use software solutions that give customers the ability to automate planogram production while enabling consistent, accurate execution of category plans and new product launches at any required granular level. All of the solution's components can be adapted to fit specific retailer or manufacturer needs.

SOURCE: Aldata Solution