Why does Tide dominate the laundry detergent aisle at my local grocery store? Why does it have over 40% market share?
Was walking down the laundry detergent aisle, and was stopped in my tracks by the wall of orange that took up (literally) almost my entire field of view when standing in front of the section. A quick count of facings showed that Tide had about 50 (yes, FIFTY) different facings for different sizes, options, and formulations. The next closest brand had about five. Not scientific, but it appeared that Tide controlled over half the available shelf space.
So here’s the question. What do you think — did Tide’s dominant distribution strategy (get as much shelf space as possible) drive its market share? Or, because of its market share, was it able to convince the grocery that it should be given an utterly dominant percentage of the shelf space?
(By the way, I did need laundry detergent. I bought the store house brand.)
Since I am far from a CPG kinda guy, your question strikes me as the grocery store/detergent equivalent of “the chicken or the egg”. Hopefully someone will enlighten this space with the inside scoop.
Speaking of which, how was your laundry day? Here’s wishing you the whitest whites and brightest colors.
hi, pat…thanks for stopping by! laundry day was productive, thanks. 🙂
I think the question is – in what KIND of store was this aisle of detergent found?
In a big box store you might find less assortment – more space given to “proven leaders” while in a specialty store there might be many “green” detergent brands and only few big name brands like Tide or Gain.
Just as with online shopping, where you are at will dictate what you will find. Now, of course it’s easier to change which aisle you are in online (and for the retailer to change brands and virtual shelf space) – but brick and mortar retailers are probably going to continue to be more careful with shelf space in this economy – going with more proven leaders rather than taking chances with highly valuable space