Why Planograms Are the Engine of Your Store’s Profitability

The franchisor’s category team, using tools like DotActiv (SA’s dominant planogram software), designs the POG using sales data, market share benchmarks, and your store’s cluster profile. Your store is not the same as every other store in the network — a township store and a suburban store serving LSM 9 should have meaningfully different planograms even in the same chain.

The design follows strict rules: segment blocking (grouping all gravies together regardless of brand) consistently outperforms brand blocking by 5–8% in sales. Logical adjacencies (pasta next to pasta sauce, nappies next to baby food) drive basket size. Hotspots — gondola ends, till areas, category entry points — are reserved for the highest-margin impulse items.

The SOP is non-negotiable: remove all old stock → clean the shelf → build to the new POG → verify facing counts → photograph and submit within 48 hours. The photography step is how the franchisor confirms compliance. Stores that skip this step and just move a few products around are leaving the benefit on the table and creating a compliance risk.

Implementation day is also when SAP replenishment settings must be updated — shelf capacity (facings × pack depth) drives the system’s min/max. If you change the shelf but don’t update the system, you’ll either starve the shelf or flood the back room.

A planogram only works if it’s maintained. Daily replenishment staff must fill to the facing, not just fill the shelf. FIFO (oldest to front) must be respected at every replenishment. Out-of-stocks must be flagged immediately — an empty facing is a lost sale, and a lost sale in a destination category (meat, produce, bakery) is a lost basket.

Your weekly store walk should include a POG compliance check: pick five bays at random, compare shelf to planogram. If you’re running below 95% compliance, you have a training problem that’s costing you sales every single day.

Every month, your category scorecard should show you: Sales per metre (is this category earning its floor space?), GP per metre (is it earning it profitably?), OSA % (On-Shelf Availability — are gaps being created?), Stock turn (is inventory moving fast enough?), and Waste % (is any of it being thrown away?).

The benchmark for GP per metre across most ambient categories is >R2,500/m/month. If you’re below that, the category needs more space, better placement, or a ranging change — or all three.

This is where active franchisees beat passive ones. Your planogram is a living document, not a once-a-year exercise. Seasonal shifts require proactive POG changes:

Every quarter, your bottom 20% of SKUs by GP per metre should be reviewed for delisting. These slow movers tie up working capital, create replenishment complexity, and waste shelf space that a better performer could use. The discipline to delist is one of the most value-creating things a franchisee can do — and one of the hardest emotionally, because suppliers push back hard.

New Product Introductions (NPIs) follow the reverse logic: they get a trial facing allocation, a 90-day performance window, and either earn their space or get removed. No product deserves shelf space on sentiment.