Upgrade the frozen aisle without freezing sales
Grocers around the country are upgrading refrigeration. Improving leak rates and moving to environmentally friendly refrigerants like CO2 has become a top priority.
In this ultra-competitive grocery environment, how can retailers do this without sacrificing sales and customers? Typically, grocers will plan refrigeration case exchanges in phases. These changeouts are usually undertaken while the store isn’t busy or overnight, meaning only a small section of cases can be swapped at any one time. The merchandise in these cases however, must be stored somewhere else. For most grocers, this means relocating the merchandise into a refrigerated trailer at the dock. Once the new cases are installed, the items are re-merchandised - this process is continued over several weeks.
While this process works, there are several bottlenecks costing retailers:
- Dock space is at a premium. Docking a refrigerated trailer takes up valuable dock space for receiving in new inventory. For many grocers today, it is not a viable option to move already merchandised inventory back into a docked trailer while cases are removed and replaced.
- Just in time is no longer on time. To execute small, case by case replacements, retailers need new equipment on site. They also need labor scheduled to re-pipe and install those new cases at that time. Scheduling both new equipment and the appropriate labor to arrive on site at the same time has become an enormous challenge.
- Potential lost sales. Not every case replacement can be made overnight. Cases are often down while customers are shopping in the store. This frequently leads to lost sales and confused, irritated customers.
Minimize disruption to customers and keep stores trading with Lowe’s remodel refrigeration support
To avoid these issues, many grocers work with Lowe Rental to deploy temporary refrigerated line-ups in place of their to be replaced cases. These cases can be set in place or moved from line-up to line-up. This means merchandise only needs to be moved from one case to another.
Temporary line-ups are normally set in the same area as the permanent cases, so customers don’t have to search for the products they need. This also saves valuable dock space, allowing new inventory to be received. The biggest advantage to this process since the start of the pandemic has been lead time flexibility. Equipment arrival and labor availability don’t have to line up perfectly for this process to work.
Refrigeration Solutions for Remodels
Lowe offer a variety of commercial display refrigerators and display freezers for retail and remodel rental. Available in a wide range of styles and sizes, from 2 door display freezers to open display refrigerators, each unit provides prime product display and operational reliability.
Our custom designed dual temperature G8C unit can be moved around a store to fill in for a freezer or cooler lineup. This allows stores to remerchandise exactly where customers are used to looking for a product.
How can Lowe Help you?
Contact us today to learn how Lowe’s remodel programs can work for your stores.