TABS Analytics Blog

Dr. Kurt Jetta, TABS Analytics' CEO, was recently interviewed by Tim Simmons of PLMA Live to discuss the TABS 2016 Food and Beverage Study findings on online grocery.

While there is no disagreement between the TABS study and industry estimates pointing to online grocery's current share of 1.5 to 2.0 percent, the contention lies with the future growth of the industry. Dr. Jetta does not expect the exponential growth that others in the industry are predicting for the coming years. He goes one step further and declares that online grocery is failing, as things stand currently.

So it appears that TABS is five years late in noting that online grocery is failing.

About a month ago, we made that declaration during our Food and Beverage Study webinar. That statement has been met with much resistance throughout the industry.

But it’s something that’s been said since at least 2011, when Forbes/Investopedia ran this article citing 10 reasons why online grocery is failing.

How plugging the holes in your supply chain is totally unrelated to gauging the effectiveness of your trade promotion

When attending various industry summits, I hear a lot of presentations about trade promotion analysis. Some speakers really know their stuff; most don’t. For example, whenever I hear the phrase, “You can analyze trade promotion effectiveness using shipment data,” I know that I can freely disregard whatever comes after. You can’t. Not accurately, anyway, and not without wasting a lot of time to finally find out you are measuring something else: the degree to which your supply chain is a leaky bucket of diversion.

What happens when you tie a pair of stray grocery carts together? Do they start gliding across the parking lot in a straight line or do their wheels lock up and go nowhere? Drawing upon real-world experience, the answer to this riddle is no big mystery.

Target is finally handing Canadians the deep discounts they crave on shampoo, smartphones and swing sets. Too bad it's for the last time. In one of the great humiliations of North American retail history, Target has begun liquidating more than 130 stores in Canada, after just two years of operation that spurred $2 billion in operating losses.

Like many of its counterparts in the yogurt category, Chobani has become a household name and skyrocketed to success over the past few years. However, the recent reports of drama in Chobani’s C-suite are indicative of larger problems. According to our founder and CEO Dr. Kurt Jetta, Chobani’s recent issues (over-investing in an expensive production facility in Idaho, a product recall in 2013, and disappointing performance of new products) are signs of an overall problem with Chobani’s strategy.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) surprised the retail industry—and the media—earlier this week when they released their annual Thanksgiving Weekend Spending Survey and estimated an 11 percent decrease in sales from last year. While a number of analysts, including TABS Group’s CEO Kurt Jetta, have called attention to some flaws in the NRF data, the uncertainty about the holiday shopping season may have some retailers on edge. How can they maximize sales in the next three weeks?

While a number of major consumables companies—from Kraft to Campbell’s—have launched complex marketing campaigns in an effort to attract sought-after millennials, the decline in millennial women’s purchasing of consumables continues to be a contributor to the sluggish CPG market. TABS Group’s 2014 Consumer Value study of Consumables found that purchase occasions of consumables to millennial women are down 14 percent overall.

All right I'm guilty of the dramatic, attention-grabbing headline that ignores the nuances of this issue. A more accurate headline would be ""8 Reasons Why Mass Market Loyalty Programs Don't Perform as well as the Programs they replaced." Too wordy and not bold enough.