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Earn your NACS Certified Convenience Advanced Category Management certification (CCACM) through the completion of this hands-on course. Comprised of key strategic planning and analytical skill-building programs, this 6 -hour interactive course is tailored for experienced category management and merchandising professionals from retailers and suppliers in the convenience and fueling retailing channel.
Learn how to develop a holistic brand strategy and identify points of differentiation for your brand. Discover how to integrate consumer shopping behavior to create winning space and assortment strategies. A deep dive into price elasticity modeling, utilizing some behavioral economic principles, will guide attendees on how to optimize price, promotions, and overall profitability.
Completion of the online NACS Certified Convenience Category Manager (CCCM) course prior to this event is strongly encouraged, as an understanding of basic category management principles are assumed during this Advanced program.
Drawing on the fundamentals included in the online NACS Advanced Category Management curriculum, this in-person course will incorporate industry data and offer collaborative work sessions designed for maximum learning and retention.
Upon completion, each participant will earn an CCACM certificate from NACS and Impact 21.
Objectives
- Importance of a clearly defined brand strategy & developing points of differentiation
- Optimize your price and promotional strategies thru a deeper understanding of category roles & strategies, elasticity modeling, comprehensive analysis, and behavioral economic theories
- Utilize a broad set of consumer data from loyalty, manufacturer, and syndicated sources to better understand shopper behavior and optimize category performance
- Improve your space management and assortment strategies by incorporating the right set of data, utilizing productivity & placement fundamentals, and ensuring a sound execution and analytical review process
A light breakfast and lunch will be provided. Space is limited to 60 attendees.
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Brand Strategy: Define your brand strategy and develop points of differentiation
- Latest trends shaping the convenience customer
- Three primary segments of brand strategy: Points of differentiation, Operational Excellence and People
- Six pillars of merchandising differentiation
- Aligning category roles and strategies to brand strategy
- Category grid concept (work session)
Pricing & Promotional Strategies: Develop a deeper understanding of price elasticity modeling and promotional strategies
- Foundation for building a pricing architecture
- Factors for setting price: brand strategy, category roles & strategies, competition, & elasticity
- Promotional strategies, scorecards, and communication
- Promotional strategies: various types & when to use them
- Promotional communication: location & vehicles and style
- Measuring promotional success thru a holistic, category scorecard
- Incorporating behavioral economic principles into price & promotion
Understanding Shopper Behavior: Utilize a broad set of consumer data pts from loyalty, manufacturer, and syndicated sources to better understand shopper behavior and optimize category performance.
- Incorporating relevant data points into category strategies & tactics
Assortment Analysis and Space Planning: Optimize assortment and space management strategies by incorporating the right set of data, utilizing productivity & placement fundamentals, and ensuring a sound execution & analytical review process
- Common shelf management measures and approach to balancing productivity and assortment goals
- Category space allocation – factors for determining optimal space by category and measurement for comparing performance
- Merchandising solutions to maximize space and enhance product presentation
- Optimizing planogram performance
- Factors and metrics for selecting additions and deletions
- Balancing variety, capacity, profitability, and shopper preferences
- Utilizing market level data and customer segmentation
- Importance of location: product shelf placement, category adjacencies and location with store
Liza brings innovative leadership to Impact 21, inspiring teams to think differently and push the boundaries of traditional industry norms. She taps into her expertise in small format merchandising, marketing, branding, and business strategy to help companies realize their business objectives. Liza’s deep background in merchandising, paired with her knack for strategic thinking, enable her to lead merchandising and marketing strategy that results in achieved sales and gross profit goals. Liza extends her expertise, particularly in fresh food program development, as a NACS speaker.
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Liza applied her aptitude for guiding staff and clients, along with her industry savvy, to several senior leadership roles. She served as Senior Director of Brand Concept Development at Sunoco, with past experience as Senior Vice President of Marketing & Merchandising at Mid-Atlantic Convenience Stores and various senior merchandising roles at Giant Eagle.
Native to Pennsylvania, Liza graduated from Indiana University of PA with both a Bachelor of Science in Finance and an MBA. She has attended many business leadership programs from the following universities: Duquense, Carnegie Mellon, and Cornell. Liza has returned to her home state of PA, though her career first led her to Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Liza believes in playing an active role to improve living conditions to those that are most in need. She founded Zaden, connecting the world to the exquisite hand-embroidered clothing designs of Kashmir India one stitch at a time. Her 14- and 15-year-old sons keep her busy between track meets, soccer games, and piano recitals. She finds time for herself through running, yoga, and relaxing with friends by the fire-pit on weekends.
Impact 21 sets the bar high in convenience with Lucia Romanello Crater. As a sales and marketing leader, with an exceptional executive-level network, Lucia is charged with leading Impact’s Convenience Store Business Development. Her 25+ years in the convenience store industry, with a track record and proficiency in driving growth and market share gains, serves her well in this role. She specializes in developing new business connections, recruiting and training superior achievers, and closing innovative and profitable sales.
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Though born into an old fashioned, Italian family where women’s roles were clearly defined, her mother taught Lucia she could do and be anything she wanted to be. And Lucia did just that. She is a founding member and current officer of the Network of Executive Women in the Consumer Products Industry (NEW). She was named one of the Top Women in Convenience at the Senior Executive Level by Convenience Store News Magazine in 2014 and given the Best of the Best Leader Award in 2016 by NEW. Lucia is one of the leaders of the NEW team who worked to build a new region in the Nashville market. She served on the NACS Retail Board and NACS Supplier Board on which she was Chairman of the Manpower, Membership, and Exhibitor Advisory Committees. Initially elected Vice Chairman of the Board followed by Chairman Elect, Lucia was ultimately elected Chairman of the NACS Supplier Board. Boy would her mama be proud!
Prior to joining Impact 21, she was the Director of Convenience at Jack Link’s, where she successfully led the implementation of Go-to-Market strategies to surpass top line sales budgets while delivering the bottom-line gross profit budget. As Director of Sales, Convenience at KIND Healthy Snacks, she was instrumental in driving convenience store market share. Most notably, Lucia was Director of Sales, Convenience at US Nutrition where she developed and directed the strategy to raise the profile of the MET-Rx brand to the #1 High Protein product in the channel. Her Convenience Store career began at GSP as Vice President of Sales where she built key retailer relationships that led to the company’s focus in the channel.
Born in Connecticut, growing up in New Jersey and Richmond, VA, and graduating from James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, Lucia now calls Nashville, TN home. She gives back to her communities through volunteer work and lending her voice to her church choir. She was awarded the Richard Llano Service Award for her contributions of time and talent from Jesuit High School in her former hometown of Tampa, FL. She passes her strong work ethic and values on to her son, James, who is the Product Director at 180 Health Partners. Lucia’s philosophy behind it all – “Don’t quit.”
2023 Pricing:
Retailers - $499
Suppliers - $599
Limited to 60 retail and supplier attendees. Pre-event registration is required, no on-site registrations will be accepted.
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This year’s NACS Advanced Category Management Certification Course is co-located with the 2023 NACS Show. Learn more about the NACS Show and register separately at www.nacsshow.com.