(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This article covers the “Challenges of optimal merchandising”)
After dinner on Sunday night, my batchmates bid goodnight even as I entered Circle K convenience store in downtown Boston. One of them asked me what I was going to shop. I replied that this is just another classroom for me to learn!
There are moments in a retail professional’s life when the store does the teaching, and you simply have to be still enough to listen.
Inside, I found what you’d expect from a well-run c-store.
Snacks, packaged food, bakery products, beverages — Pepsi, juices, bottled water stacked neatly. A tobacco wall doing what tobacco walls typically do. No alcohol — this particular outlet had clearly made its choice on Boston’s licensing landscape.
I walked the store in under three minutes. Nothing caught my eye particularly — until I reached the billing counter.
There it was. A universal travel adapter. USD 15. Sitting right at eye level, at the point of sale, as though it had been waiting specifically for me.
I had been struggling for two days with my Indian plug and the American Type A socket. I’d improvised, but barely. And here was the solution, placed precisely where it would find me at my most receptive.
I picked it up. I paid. I was back on the street in under ninety seconds.
That one transaction has stayed with me as a retail practitioner.
Here is the thing about category management — the discipline we teach, debate, and deconstruct in every retail seminar — placing the right product at the right place at the right time at the right price for the right consumer.
Every retailer I have worked with knows this, almost by reflex.
And yet, how many of them apply it rigorously to the non-glamorous, non-FMCG accessories that sit quietly, almost apologetically, in their stores?
Planogram optimisation, when practised honestly, should begin with margin contribution per centimetre of shelf space — not with brand equity, volume targets, or vendor negotiation leverage.
FMCG products — biscuits, shampoos, soaps, beverages — are essential. They drive footfall. But net margins rarely cross 8-12%. Trade schemes, returns, damages, and seasonal promotions erode even that thin number further.
A travel adapter, a universal charger, a power bank, or a cable — priced at a healthy premium, placed at the billing counter, propelled by pure necessity — can deliver 50–60% gross margins with zero promotional support and zero scheme cost.
No gondola end negotiation. No loyalty programme. No scheme. Just the right product, in the right place, for a consumer with no time and no alternatives.
The Indian convenience retail sector is still in its formative years. But the lesson from a Circle K billing counter in downtown Boston is clear and directly transferable.
High-margin functional accessories are hiding in plain sight. They deserve a planogram. They deserve a category manager who sees beyond the FMCG gondola.
They deserve, at the very least, to be placed where a distracted Indian retailer — jaywalking through life — can actually find them.
(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims.)
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9 here.
