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Misspelled Procter, hired anyway
A cashier's education
Nilam Ganenthiran had worked in a discount grocery store since age 16, and he fell for consumer goods there. As a cashier he knew exactly when the government checks went out, because that was when people loaded up on diapers. He went on to study business, accounting, and finance, planning to become a CPA.
Selling soap to Zellers
When he didn't land a summer job at any of the big four accounting firms, he applied to everything else on the job board, and P&G hired him. The job was in sales: driving a company car to Zellers stores, a retailer competing heavily with Walmart, and trying to convince store managers to set up displays of soap and toilet paper. Moving products from one part of the store to another from one week to the next made people suddenly buy a lot more Tide, which still puzzles him.
Chasing Walmart
That summer he read about Sam Walton and decided he had to work on Walmart. He asked P&G to place him on the Walmart account, dropped the accounting track, and sold them diapers.
When the role he was doing was posted as a full-time job, he asked to keep working and finish school at night. P&G agreed, probably for the first time for anyone. It showed him that you can work a lot harder than you think you can.
Why does moving a display change sales?
A product on an end cap, the shelf end facing a main aisle, is seen by nearly every shopper who walks past. Displays also signal a deal or a featured item, which prompts purchases that were not planned. Manufacturers often pay retailers for display space, an arrangement known as trade promotion spending. Trade promotion is one of the largest marketing expenses for packaged-goods companies.
Why do purchases spike when checks arrive?
Economist Melvin Stephens Jr. studied Social Security recipients in a 2003 paper in the American Economic Review. He found that spending on goods rose in the days after checks arrived, even though the payment dates were known well in advance. Households that run low on cash before the next payment tend to buy in bulk when it lands. Beneficiaries who began receiving benefits before May 1997 are paid on the third of the month.
How did Walmart change Canadian discount retail?
Walmart entered Canada in 1994 by buying 122 Woolco stores. It quickly became the main rival of Zellers, the discount chain owned by Hudson's Bay Company. Hudson's Bay sold the leases for many Zellers locations to Target in 2011. Most Zellers stores had closed by early 2013.
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