What exactly does a category manager in a shopping mall do?

Category Management

A category is a group of products or services that are easy to distinguish and can be managed. These products (or services) can be substituted for each other. Category management is a series of related activities in which distributors and/or suppliers divide the commodities they operate into different categories and manage each category of commodities as the basic activity unit of the enterprise's business strategy. Its core emphasis is to provide consumers with superior products. value-added products and services to improve the effectiveness of business operations.

Initiated by the concept of "efficient consumer response" (ECR), more and more international retail companies are vigorously promoting category management, but the category management of many domestic retail companies is still at a low level. A kind of initial stage of primitiveness.

The following is a description of the category management business process:

Category setting: Some experts also call it category definition. What needs to be achieved is to combine the previously chaotic products or services. Classify them and let them find their own place according to the classification of consumers. Each product or service "has a home". Products or services in this category are related or substitutable.

Category roles: Generally, category roles are divided into four types: target categories, regular categories, seasonal categories, and convenience categories. When describing, the category role should be described as a desired state, with the purpose of having it play such a role in category management. The setting of these category roles should fully consider the needs of consumers and reflect their purchasing behavior.

Category evaluation: Adequate category evaluation will promote the comprehensive improvement of the company's business strategy and marketing activities, and comprehensively evaluate the procurement, processing and storage costs of goods, commodity turnover times, service levels, and variety combinations. and marketing activities, usually category evaluation is conducted along the lines of obtaining information, analyzing information, and summarizing/recommending walks.

Category Metrics: It reflects category role and category evaluation. Testing indicators are specific goals jointly formulated by distributors and suppliers for a certain category's business plan.

Category strategy: Category strategy is formulated by enterprises to achieve category management roles and goals. For different category roles and goals, different category strategies must be used. For example, for targeted categories, strategies such as strengthening credibility and increasing transaction volume should be used to achieve the level of contribution of the category.

Category skills: It is the action taken to implement category strategy; it involves five areas: variety combination, pricing skills, promotion skills, shelf display, and product supply.

Category implementation: This is a very important step. All steps have been done well. Without this step, the potential advantages of category management cannot be tapped. It is also a step that allows category management to achieve breakthroughs.

Category inspection: ISO9000 has always emphasized PDCA; this step is the "C (check)"; only by continuously measuring and inspecting the progress of relevant business plans such as category roles and category indicators, can Conduct appropriate research on business plans to effectively implement category management.