SAS Retail Strengthens and Expands Merchandising Services in Midwest
After four years of dedication, persistence and teamwork, SAS Retail Services recently landed a contract to become the sole in-store execution provider for Roundy’s portfolio of 148 stores in Wisconsin and the greater Chicago area. Under the new partnership, SAS will coordinate, manage and execute all new item cut-ins, category resets, store remodels and other merchandising services for Pick n’ Save, Copps, Metro Market and Mariano’s supermarkets.
“This was a great team effort with our parent company Daymon Worldwide,” says Tom Dennis, Vice President of Business Development for SAS Retail. “Jim Griffin and the rest of the Daymon team at Roundy’s were instrumental in bringing this new program to fruition. It’s a big thing for us, because it’s allowing us to expand and strengthen our services in geographic areas we didn’t have an ongoing presence in before.”
Prior to the partnership with SAS, Roundy’s banners relied on a myriad of vendor-led brokers for its in-store merchandising needs. Because of this, the stores never actually knew who would be doing merchandising in its stores and when, or exactly what was being done. With the new dedicated program from SAS, each store will have set teams that service them on a regular schedule, and SAS will provide real-time updates and analytics reporting to show store management the clear benefits and efficiencies of the program.
“SAS’ merchandising program will be a much a more effective, efficient spend for suppliers and for Roundy’s,” says Dennis. “It will give Roundy’s more freedom to focus on other programs and promotions to engage with their shoppers. It will also have a very positive impact on sales by getting product on the shelves faster. For example, with previous broker services, category refreshes were taking eight weeks. We’re committing to getting them done in one week.”
While Roundy’s and SAS have been in talks for several years, once Roundy’s committed to the partnership, the actual program came together very quickly and efficiently as well. SAS’ business development, project management and hiring teams managed to compress the usual 12 to 16 week startup time into 8 weeks while overcoming the extra challenges of hiring during the winter holidays and staffing both daytime and overnight operations.
“At all of the Daymon companies, we talk about being one and working together. This project most certainly represents one team working together for success,” concludes Dennis.
To learn more about in-store merchandising new business opportunities, contact Michael Bellman, Divisional President – SAS at mbellman@sasretail.com.