Albertson's, Inc. is engaged in a single operating segment, the retail sale of food and drug merchandise in the United States. As of April 30, 2004, the Company operated over 2,500 retail stores in 37 states. These retail stores consist of 1,556 combination food-drug stores, 707 stand-alone drugstores and 247 conventional and warehouse stores. The Company also operated 228 fuel centers in 22 states, which are located near its existing stores. Retail operations are supported by 17 distribution centers. These distribution centers provide product exclusively to the Company's retail stores. Albertson's stores operated under the banners Albertsons, Albertsons Express, Albertsons-Osco, Albertsons-Sav-on, Jewel, Jewel-Osco, Acme, Sav-on Drugs, Osco Drug, Max Foods, Super Saver Foods, Shaw's and Star Markets.

The Albertsons sell-through testing program was designed to provide you and your category manager with information on how well your product will sell throughout the entire chain. To determine its potential, we measure the sales of a product over an eight week period in a sample of twenty Albertsons stores. The results enable you and the buyer to make an informed decision about adding a product to their assortment.

All companies are referred to the sell-through testing program by Albertsons category managers.

Albertsons has partnered with Warehouse Products Testing (WPT) to facilitate Albertsons' sell-through test program. This process provides fast and easy setup of your product at Albertsons, and establishes a point of contact for feedback.

Real Life Conditions: Your product is given every chance to sell well during the program. The Plan-o-gram Department will choose the shelf location for your product, often placing it next to the best seller in its category. WPT's detailers set up your product on the shelf, test scan it for correct pricing, and photograph it on the shelf. The photographs are then sent back to the WPT sales office for analysis. The clock for the eight-week period starts ticking only on the day your product is set up correctly.

Post Test: At your program's conclusion, WPT will send a sell-through report to you and to your Albertsons category manager. The detailed report will contain sales information for each week of the test and the average sell-through rate over the entire period. Your report package will also include pictures of product set-ups in the test site.

Selling at Albertsons: At the conclusion of the test, you will negotiate with Albertsons either directly, though your rep group, or through your distributor. WPT is not involved in this part of the sales process and charges no further fees or commission. At your request WPT can provide you with the names of qualified rep groups or consultants.

Test Fee Schedule:

A 15 store test for one item: $7,500

A 15 store test of each additional item, tested concurrently: $3,000.

Different prices may apply for larger multi SKU tests.

For more information click here to contact us or call us at 508-580-3300.