The Container Store Opens Up Space Planning

By Brian Albright, Integrated Solutions For Retailers magazine

When retailers purchase new products, determining placement in the store and how much space to allocate plays a key role in how the products are merchandised. For The Container Store, this process is even more important, as it helps customers keep organized.

But, unlike its customers, The Container Store had an organizational problem — its planogram process was manual and time-consuming. "We did everything through digital photography," says Joe Wilkinson, senior director of planning and merchandising at The Container Store. "We're somewhat unique ... in that we work with our vendors and buyers from the very beginning to work out product placement before we ever buy anything.We used to take the product to a local store and work it into the displays, take a photo, then pull it off the shelf. The photos would be issued for the stores to use when they received the new products."