Types of Merchandising and Field Execution Strategies for CPG Brands in India

I’ve personally consulted on CPG field operations across India for over a decade. In that time, I’ve witnessed billion-dollar brands lose market share not because of a bad product or poor TV advertising, but because of a single, catastrophic failure: poor in-store execution.

Consider this harsh reality: across the Indian retail landscape from sprawling modern trade outlets in Mumbai to the millions of traditional kirana stores, it is estimated that 90% of companies fail to deliver on their in-store promotional strategy. This failure to execute the ‘perfect store’ plan can translate directly into a 10-15% loss in potential revenue for an average CPG company.

As a representative of a field sales automation company, I’ve spent the last several years embedding AI and data into the daily lives of thousands of field representatives. My team has worked with over 50 large CPG clients, helping them transform their ad-hoc trade marketing into a data-driven science. Our focus is squarely on the Indian market, where the complexity of language, geography, and diverse retail formats demands a highly adaptive, yet ruthlessly consistent, execution strategy.

Retail merchandising in India involves managing on-shelf availability, planogram compliance, and display effectiveness across modern and traditional trade channels, with field automation being essential to drive consistent, data-backed execution and measurable trade marketing ROI.

The Core Battlefield: Understanding Retail Merchandising Types for CPG

Merchandising is far more than just “stocking shelves.” It is the art and science of presenting a product to maximize its sales potential. For CPG brands, especially those operating in India, merchandising must be segmented into three distinct, yet interconnected, types.

1. Product Merchandising: The Science of Availability and Assortment

This is the foundational type of merchandising, focused on the operational elements that ensure the product can actually be bought. In India, where supply chain volatility is common, this is arguably the most critical pillar.

On-Shelf Availability (OSA) and CPG Shelf Availability

OSA is the ultimate KPI for any field team. If a product is not on the shelf, every other marketing and merchandising effort is wasted. Out-of-stock (OOS) situations are rampant in Indian retail merchandising strategies.

• The Kirana Challenge: In traditional kirana stores, visibility into back-stock is nearly zero. The field rep must manually verify stock and secure the immediate replenishment from the back or, often, place a new order.
• The Modern Trade Challenge: While better inventoried, modern trade stores (e.g., Reliance Retail, D-Mart) still see OOS due to shelf-stocking delays or incorrect data logging.
• The Solution: Field automation must capture real-time CPG shelf availability status using quick mobile forms or, ideally, Image Recognition (IR) technology that identifies missing SKUs instantly.

Assortment Optimization

This involves ensuring the right mix of SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) is available in the right stores, factoring in local consumer demand.

A Tier-1 city hypermarket requires a different assortment profile than a Tier-3 town’s general store.

• Geo-Personalized Assortment: Field managers need real-time data to confirm the retailer is stocking the correct SKUs. For example, a CPG brand selling premium coffee will have a different primary assortment in South Indian metro cities compared to a brand selling local snacks.
• Managing New Product Introductions (NPI): A common failure point is the incorrect merchandising of NPIs. The field team must be tasked with ensuring NPIs are visible and correctly placed, often requiring a dedicated, temporary planogram compliance software module.

2. Visual Merchandising: Driving Impulse and Brand Story

This is the creative aspect, using visual elements to attract, engage, and persuade the shopper. It is how a product fights for attention in a cluttered aisle. Successful visual merchandising types for CPG brands in India must be culturally resonant and space-efficient.

Key Visual Merchandising Types for CPG

The correct deployment of these elements is a cornerstone of effective in-store execution.

Merchandising Type	CPG Use Case in India	Execution Goal
Gondola/Shelf Placement	FMCG staples (Atta, Rice, Detergent) at eye level or “Pester Power” level for kids’ products.	Maximize daily purchase visibility and prevent competitive encroachment (Share of Shelf).
End Cap Displays (ECDs)	High-margin impulse buys, seasonal items (e.g., Diwali or Holi snacks/sweets), or new product launches.	Drive high-volume, unplanned purchases in high-traffic zones.
Point-of-Purchase (POP)/POS	Small choco-bars, batteries, or mints near the checkout counter in Indian retail outlets.	Capitalize on the final impulse decision right before payment.
Thematic Displays	Cricket season campaigns, festive bundling (e.g., a “Health & Immunity” section for supplements).	Create emotional resonance and drive larger basket sizes.
Cross-Merchandising	Selling wafers next to soft drinks in the cooler section; toothbrushes next to toothpaste.	Increase basket size by suggesting complementary items.

Ensuring Promotional Integrity

A key field execution best practice is the auditing of promotional materials. A misplaced price tag, an expired offer signage, or a damaged standee in a Tier-2 city market can severely undermine a multi-crore campaign.

• The Execution Gap: Marketing designs a perfect display; the field rep often executes it poorly or inconsistently across 100+ stores.
• The Solution: Digital checklists and mandatory photo verification, often scored by an AI to ensure the display angle, lighting, and planogram are correct, close this gap instantly.

3. Tactical Merchandising: The Power of Planograms and Pricing

This involves the critical, minute details that govern how the products sit on the shelf and at what price. These tactics directly address consistency, which is the biggest challenge in a diverse retail ecosystem like India’s.

The Non-Negotiable: Planogram Compliance

A planogram is a visual diagram that dictates exactly where and how many facings (front-facing products) each SKU should have on the shelf. Its compliance is non-negotiable for maximizing revenue. The data shows that stores with high planogram compliance can see up to 12% higher sales than non-compliant stores.

• The Compliance Hurdle: Manually checking planograms is time-consuming and prone to human error. Field reps are often forced to take several blurry photos and try to make sense of the shelf layout manually.
• The Need for Technology: This is where planogram compliance software becomes indispensable. Solutions utilizing Image Recognition (IR) can take a single picture of a shelf and, within seconds, analyze it against the ideal planogram, generating an instant compliance score. This not only saves the rep 30 minutes per store but provides instant, quantifiable data back to the HQ, driving a superior trade marketing ROI.

Pricing and Promotional Accuracy

An incorrect Maximum Retail Price (MRP) or a promotional sticker applied incorrectly is not just a lost sale; it’s a compliance risk. In the geo-specific context of India, pricing discrepancies due to local taxes or retailer mark-ups are constant issues.

• Real-time Price Audits: Field reps must be enabled to scan shelf prices and compare them in real time against the master price list. This is a core component of a modern in-store execution challenges India playbook.
• Competitor Intelligence: Merchandising excellence is also about knowing the competition. Field automation tools should be used to capture competitor pricing, facings, and promotional activities, creating a dynamic feedback loop for the Trade Marketing team.

🚀 The Missing Link: Field Execution Best Practices and Automation

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your merchandising strategy is; if your field team of thousands cannot execute it consistently across every single Indian retail outlet, you will fail. The answer is moving from paper-based reporting and WhatsApp groups to a unified Field Sales Automation (FSA) platform.

1. From Gut Feel to Data-Driven Field Visits

The most successful CPG companies in India are using data to tell the field rep exactly what to do in every store visit.

• Intelligent Task Prioritization: Instead of a generic checklist, the field application assigns prioritized tasks based on store type, historical sales, and last visit’s compliance score. For example, a store with a low CPG shelf availability score for the dairy category will have “Check Cooler Stock & Merchandising” as its #1 task.
• Optimized Routing: The platform uses geospatial data to plan the most efficient travel route, ensuring the rep spends more time executing and less time driving, a huge multiplier on the potential trade marketing ROI.
• Digital Audits and Checklists: Every merchandising task, from checking the POP display condition to validating the product date codes, is digitized and must be verified by a photo or GPS-stamped checklist.

2. Eliminating Human Bias with Image Recognition

Image Recognition (IR) technology has moved from a novelty to an essential tool for CPG field execution best practices.

It removes the subjectivity and error inherent in manual auditing.

• Planogram Scoring: The rep takes a photo of the shelf. The AI scores the compliance instantly (e.g., 92% compliant), flags deviations (e.g., “Competitor A is blocking 2 facings”), and provides a corrective action plan immediately. This is the definition of next-generation planogram compliance software.
• Out-of-Stock Detection: IR automatically identifies gaps on the shelf, detecting OOS or low stock levels in real time. This immediate feedback enables the rep to fix the issue before leaving the store.
• Proof of Promotion: The AI verifies that the correct promotional materials (e.g., a BOGO offer sticker) are in the correct location and are not damaged.

3. The Virtuous Cycle: Boosting Trade Marketing ROI

A well-executed merchandising strategy, powered by automation, creates a self-improving feedback loop that maximizes your trade marketing ROI.

1. Plan: Marketing creates a precise, data-backed planogram and promotion.
2. Execute: The FSA platform guides the field team with optimized routes and prioritized digital tasks, ensuring high-quality in-store execution challenges India.
3. Measure: Image Recognition delivers real-time, objective compliance data.
4. Analyze: HQ sees a dynamic dashboard: which promotion worked where, and why? Was the low-performing promotion due to poor execution (e.g.,60% compliance) or poor strategy?
5. Adapt: Future promotions and planograms are modified based on proven, data-driven insights. The result is consistently higher sales per store visit.

The Automation Edge: HappiSales for Unmatched Execution in India

To truly master the different types of merchandising and ensure field compliance at scale across the millions of diverse retail points in India, you need a solution built specifically for this complexity.

HappiSales is engineered for the Indian CPG market, offering the deepest integration of geo-aware, AI-powered field execution and reporting.

Feature Area	The HappiSales Advantage	Direct Impact on Merchandising Success
Planogram Compliance	AI-Powered Image Recognition (IR) for real-time compliance scoring on the field rep’s mobile device.	10x Faster Audits: Reduces audit time by 75%, allowing reps to visit more stores and correct deviations instantly, boosting trade marketing ROI.
Task Management	Smart task assignments and geo-fencing ensure the rep is at the right store and is guided through high-priority tasks first.	Maximized Efficiency: Reps focus exclusively on high-impact merchandising tasks, directly tackling in-store execution challenges India.
CPG Shelf Availability	Instant OOS detection via Image Recognition combined with predictive stock-level alerts.	Eliminates Lost Sales: Dramatically lowers out-of-stock rates, which is the #1 driver of improved CPG shelf availability and revenue.
Reporting & ROI	Unified dashboard showing promotion compliance linked to POS data and competitor activity intelligence.	Data-Driven Strategy: Provides a clear picture of which retail merchandising strategies India truly work and informs future trade spend.

Consistency is the New Currency

For CPG Field Sales Managers and Trade Marketing Heads in India, the message is clear: the era of paper-based reports, manual audits, and gut-feel execution is over. In a market as competitive and complex as India, the difference between market leader and laggard lies entirely in the consistency of your field execution.

We have explored the three pillars of merchandising: Product (Availability), Visual (Engagement), and Tactical (Compliance). The successful orchestration of these three types, ensuring high CPG shelf availability, perfect execution of visual merchandising types for CPG, and non-negotiable planogram compliance, is the direct path to maximizing your revenue per store.

By adopting an intelligent Field Sales Automation solution like HappiSales, you are not just digitizing forms; you are embedding data, AI, and structured workflow into the daily routine of every field rep. You are moving from reacting to problems to predicting and preventing them. You are turning the monumental challenge of in-store execution challenges India into your biggest competitive advantage, delivering a clear and sustainable trade marketing ROI.