It was never about photos of supermarket shelves, it was about the speed at which they were cleared. thats not a phenomena we can track reliably any more, with one or two photos of your local aisle. Shelves aren’t cleared fast enough to get excited about it today. IMO, any Daigou action takes place before it even gets to the shelf.
pallets in the aisles of which staff never bothered unboxing and stacking, because D would clear it in a matter of hours was the photo we chased.
But today, there is a problem with replenishing shelves with haste, so if you see an empty shelf, you might think it’s so hot they can’t keep it in stock - but it’s more likely an indication of a breakdown elsewhere, or choice made by the supermarket team, or a2.
My observation at my locals is that they simply just don’t replenish. Which is a frustrating mystery to me.
On the other hand what does a fully stocked shelf tell us? one photo of one shelf on one random day doesn’t say much anymore. Never did.
long held the opinion that if you want to do that, you need a larger sample. need to recognize the pattern of deliveries and sales. compare last week to this week, even better last month and this month, visiting every day… this is going to tell us more than one photo. (To me, now, MFD is a more useful indicator of what is happening)
but I think we’re beyond the photos of shelves days now. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s just frustrating that you can’t go to the supermarket and buy a premium, internationally recognized product when you want it, and not because D cleared them out.
a photo of a shelf without an sku is another thing though. Most supemarkets have it on shelf, but a few people here are starting to report that their woolworths have removed it.
my Woolworth’s still doesn’t sell a2 platinum off the shelf. No space, no sticker, gone for month at least. but it’s at the next woolies 2 km down the road, or right Next door at chemist warehouse where they have all stages, but tins don’t move that fast, not like the used to.
how can we interpret random photos of random shelves in any meaningful way?
students returning is interesting, but I’m not pinning my hopes on them. IMO the new national standard CLchina label is the premium product, compared to Englishlabel - a2 are doing a great job of promoting and making platinum available in China, so I’m Not sure what would draw the D and students back to it here.
Someone please educate me on that, if I’m missing something. Daigou, at least on a scale that will drive SP, is Done.
if I had a choice, I’d choose the improved national standard China label available over there to what we get here in Aus.
(20min delay)