POGs meet POS data for beverage breakthroughs

Automated planograms plus daily POS insights keep brands ahead in retail’s fastest-moving aisles.

Suppliers know the real work in space planning begins after buyer approval. Manually merchandising and finalizing 100 planograms can take more than 75 hours. For top U.S. retailers, who typically require thousands of planograms, this can result in thousands of hours of manual labor. Automated planogram solutions significantly reduce this workload. The entire process can be completed with less than two weeks of hands-on involvement while still meeting all compliance requirements. When quick revisions are needed, whether it’s adds, swaps, deletes, or other minor changes, updates can be made in just minutes.

Categories typically see significant changes once yearly during relay periods, but depending on trends, innovation, or seasonality, updates can take place several times a year. This is especially true for beverage categories, a microcosm of trends and formula innovations, that keep households stocked with hydrating, protein-packed, feel-good selections.

Data-driven strategies that connect planograms (POGs) with granular point-of-sale (POS) insights ensure beverage CPGs can balance optimized assortments with the agility to adapt. From emerging disruptor brands to bev-al portfolio companies, teams are better equipped to manage the complexity of space planning and execution while staying ready to seize every opportunity.

Beverage categories are a microcosm of trends and formula innovations, that keep households stocked with hydrating, protein-packed, feel-good selections.

Unlocking planogram automation

Manually creating thousands of store-specific planograms is highly time-consuming, especially when each one varies in size and assortment, and must adhere to specific requirements such as days of supply and casepack quantities. This complexity increases the likelihood of errors and slows down validation and approval workflows. Missteps in this process can strain retailer relationships and delay merchandising execution, ultimately putting sales momentum at risk. Recognizing how central space planning is to supplier performance, Crisp’s acquisition of Cantactix brought MissionControl to the market: a solution designed to automate manual and repetitive planogram tasks.

Crisp MissionControl enables fast and consistent updates, while streamlining analysis, validation, and quality assurance. Crisp MissionControl empowers small teams to plan, update, and analyze thousands of store-specific planograms with speed and accuracy, all while meeting each retailer’s unique requirements. By eliminating manual adjustments and ensuring compliance at scale, teams can shift focus from execution to strategy.

POGs meet POS data: Bubble up real-time insights

Crisp MissionControl planogram metrics reveal performance at the shelf level, showing which products move fastest and how different mixes interact based on their placements. Layer in granular point-of-sale (POS) data, and new dimensions of visibility emerge:

• Performance validation – Real-time sales velocity compared with POG metrics, like facings-to-sales ratios and space-to-sales analysis, show whether allocations are delivering returns. With POS data as the daily standard, category managers can detect underperforming SKUs, pinpoint regional growth pockets, and adjust facings or pack sizes to match demand.

• Beyond syndicated – Syndicated data often lags weeks behind and blurs performance across retailers, making it harder to see what’s truly driving growth. POS data delivers daily, store-level clarity that helps suppliers stay responsive and on the pulse of their unique performance.

• Supply chain alignment – Store-specific holding power and velocity data inform production, replenishment, and shipping so the right cases reach the right shelves.

• Empowered partnerships – Suppliers can back recommendations with evidence – whether to reclaim lost space, make the case for additional facings, or demonstrate that a new strategy missed the mark.

• Beverage category agility – With fads and flavor launches hitting shelves constantly, real-time POS data highlights both breakout wins and early signs of low-sales streaks at the SKU, store, and regional-level to find the right mix for every shopper cluster.

POS reporting extends beyond category management, providing actionable insights for sales, marketing, and revenue growth management (RGM) teams alike. It also lifts the IT burden of managing manual retail pipelines, which can cost upwards of $100K to build and $250K annually to maintain, and frees analysts to surface strategic insights instead of navigating disaggregated data complexity.

Planogram data shows which products move fastest and how different mixes interact based on their placements. Layer in granular point-of-sale (POS) data, and new dimensions of visibility emerge.

Category breakthroughs

Today’s brands that continue rising share the common thread of a dependable data foundation. Its value extends past reliable daily insights into advanced AI applications, with tools like Crisp AI Blueprints surfacing cluster strategies, sales anomalies, elasticity shifts, and ‘what-if’ assortment scenarios quickly and effortlessly. 

“You could spend days, weeks, months on analysis of raw data and still not get the level of visibility we have in Crisp,” expressed J.M. Smucker Co., Pet, Category Manager Katie Asleson, who leverages the clean, structured data for assortment and omnichannel excellence.

StarKist Sr. Category Manager Robert Peck adds, “Crisp supports StarKist’s data transformation by delivering a clean, consistent data truth that enhances collaboration with our leading retail partners and strengthens our position as an agile, data-driven category leader.”

In the beverage aisle, where resets are frequent and competition is fierce, the combination of automated POG execution and daily AI-ready data ensures category managers can keep pace with shifting trends – while modernizing space planning for the next era of retail.

“You could spend days, weeks, months on analysis of raw data and still not get the level of visibility we have in Crisp.”

_{Katie Asleson, Category Manager, J.M Smucker Company}

Explore the rest of our ‘Bubble to the top’ beverage planning series by the Crisp Cantactix team:

• Maximizing merchandising efficiency in beverage categories – Read Now
• The shifts defining today’s beverage category – Read Now
• The strategic advantage of a Center of Excellence (CoE) in beverage retail – Read Now

Bring automated space planning solutions together with Crisp real-time analytics for retail excellence. Book a demo to get started today.