Cut or launch with the shopper's reaction and the margin effect already modelled.
Edgewood Consulting Group simulates your whole category, so a portfolio decision is made on who switches, who walks and what the change does to margin, not on a cost sheet and a hunch.
The question a portfolio decision has to answer
A discontinuation looks simple on a cost sheet. A launch looks simple on a forecast. Neither sheet says what shoppers do when the shelf changes, and that is where the revenue moves. Before a portfolio change is approved, three things have to be known rather than assumed.
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Who switches
Which of your own items, and which competing items, pick up the demand when a SKU comes off the shelf, and where a new item takes its volume from.
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Who walks
The share of shoppers who leave the category or the store rather than choose something else, and what that loss means for the retailer as well as for you.
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What it does to margin
The net effect on gross and net margin once the transferred volume, the lost volume and the cost of every affected SKU are added up.
What a full-market simulation does
Edgewood delivers this as RevenueEdge™: a complete simulation of a category, linked to detailed financial metrics, built and run by our team with yours. Three things separate it from a spreadsheet exercise.
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Models the entire categoryEvery SKU on the shelf, yours and your competitors', from full-market sales data and retailer point-of-sale data where you hold it, so the answer reflects the shelf the shopper actually stands in front of.
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Uses measured switchingSwitching, transferable demand and walk rates come from Shopper Decision Hierarchy research in the category, so the simulation rests on how shoppers trade off attributes, not on an assumed substitution rate.
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Reads out in your financialsA master SKU data set with costs for every item in the category, which Edgewood helps assemble and maintain, means each scenario reports in units, revenue and gross and net margin, in the terms finance already uses.
How teams use it
New item
Simulate a launch before the sell-in. See where its volume comes from, how much is incremental to the category and how much is drawn from your own items, and set the retailer story accordingly.
Discontinuation
Test a delisting or a range cut. See which items recover the demand, which shoppers walk and what the margin position becomes, then take a case to the meeting instead of a debate.
Custom scenario
Compare a pack change, a substitution or a shift between categories side by side, with the same model and the same financial read-out for each option.
Other work we do
Edgewood Consulting Group is a sales and marketing strategy and analytics consultancy for consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers. Our work runs through three pillars, Insights, Innovation and Implementation, and reaches into Mass, Drug, Food, Club, Dollar and Online retail.
- AssortmentEdge®, assortment optimization run by individual retailer and synced to that retailer's planogram, delivered as a retailer-ready recommendation.
- Trade Probes, interviews with senior retail buyers and category managers, reported with implications and recommended actions.
- Shopper Decision Hierarchy research, the study of how shoppers trade off attributes, which feeds switching, transferable demand and walk rates.
- Trade promotion and pricing analysis, so promotional spend and price moves are judged on net revenue rather than volume alone.
- Category thought-leadership platforms, an aisle or category point of view a retailer can adopt and a supplier can lead.
- Implementation support, our team stays through the retailer presentation and the reset, rather than handing over a deck.
All of it is delivered as a service. Edgewood's team does the analysis and works alongside your brand, customer and finance teams; you are not left to operate software on your own.
Frequently asked questions
What does a simulation need from us?
Full-market sales data for the category, retailer point-of-sale data where you have it, and SKU-level costs. Edgewood helps assemble and maintain the master SKU data set. Shopper Decision Hierarchy research in the category strengthens the switching model; if none exists, we discuss how to build it as part of the work.
Who runs the model?
Edgewood builds the simulation and runs the first scenarios with your net revenue management, finance, sales and marketing teams. How far your own people run scenarios afterward is agreed in the engagement, and we train them where that is wanted.
Is this the same as an assortment recommendation for one retailer?
No. Assortment work is run for one retailer at a time and produces a recommendation for that buyer. The full-market simulation looks at the whole category and your own profit and loss. The two share the same shopper science and often inform each other.
How do we start?
Bring one live decision. A short conversation about the category, the data you hold and when the decision has to be made is enough for us to scope the work and say whether we are the right fit.
Bring the decision you are weighing now
A SKU cut, a launch or a range change that has to go to the board with the shopper's reaction and the margin effect attached. We will tell you what the simulation would show and what it would take.