How Procter & Gamble renewed with Growth in convenience stores thanks to Carrefour Links

Procter & Gamble leveraged Carrefour Links data to better understand its relatively modest performance in convenience stores compared to other retail formats in France—and to identify potential growth opportunities.

Initial insights revealed that its market share in convenience stores was nearly half that of its share in supermarkets and hypermarkets.

Two key factors emerged that may explain this underperformance:

• A lower level of product distribution in convenience stores compared to other formats.
• A slightly higher price positioning in the relevant categories, largely due to a lack of promotional offers for Procter & Gamble brands in this channel.

To reignite growth in this format, an action plan was launched:

• To optimize the presence of its products in convenience stores, Procter & Gamble, in collaboration with Carrefour Links teams, set up an incentive via an application rewarding stores that included Procter & Gamble products in their assortments.
• At the same time, significant promotions have been introduced in convenience stores, supported by the presence of on-shelf signage, with the aim of adjusting the brand’s price positioning in relation to that of the various product categories.

The results were quickly noticeable:

• A significant increase in SKU presence: in some cases, SKU availability rose from 50% to nearly 80% within a few months (and approached 100% in a test group of 12 stores).
  
• Procter & Gamble’s market share in convenience stores increased significantly.

This case illustrates once again the essential role played by the use of data in understanding sales and building action plans to develop them.