“They’re not removing the brand names to prevent theft, the distributors are the ones who won’t sell the retailer product because of the theft and the store not paying the bills.
Most supermarket chains have product delivered by the distributors, some of whom put the product directly on the shelves that they’ve paid a slotting fee for.”
Not sure where you got your information from Yoits, but you’re wrong.
All retail chains, even Walmart, have distribution centers that product is shipped to from the supplier. Certain suppliers, Nabisco was one, had route salesmen who would make an order for each store on his route and have it shipped directly from the Nabisco distribution center. Beer, wine and major soft drink companies do that as well. Everything else is delivered to a store chains distribution center and shipped to the individual stores on trucks bearing the chains logo.
Placement of product on aisles and end caps has been a pay to play proposition for decades. It’s called marketing agreements. The store chain signs an agreement with Frito Lay to allot X feet on the chip aisle for Frito-Lay products. The agreement lays out shelf location and prices and pays extra for end cap and free standing displays as well as how often products are featured in store ads.
How do I know this?
Cousins and friends with decades of experience in the grocery business in department and store management. As well as sixteen years of over the road experience myself delivering to distribution centers.
I got the information from what I did daily for years in my job.
Depending on the product, the retailers don't want to buy the product at the point of distribution but instead want to buy it at the point of sale at the register.
In addition to putting the burden of carrying the proper levels of the right products, especially perishables, on the distributor, it keeps the cost of the items off of the retailers books, giving them a more favorable stock-to-sales ratio which stockholders and Wall Street look for.
Larger retailers such as Walmart can force their suppliers to accept 60 day terms on payments which allows Walmart to sell a product they don't technically own yet but smaller chains don't have that leverage. Smaller retailers might get 30 day terms for longer shelf life items but only 15 day terms for ready consumables.
Some items are even paid upon delivery, meaning when the jobber drops them off while servicing stores on his route, the retailer pays them (often electronically, not in cash - There's a transaction code the manager punches into the register that directs payment through Accounts Payable in the corporate office. Paying for an item that's going to take 3-5 days to move from inbound receipts at the distribution center, over the dock to outbound deliveries, through the stores back room, and onto the shelf, leaves a large amount of money locked up in transit.
You were driving products over-the-road to distribution centers that the company could buy in enough bulk. You were likely rarely driving a Less than Trailer Load (LTL) but instead were taking full trailers from a manufacturer to a distribution center. Too many items in a supermarket don't sell in sufficient quantity to follow that model. Milk, Bread, chips, pastries, point-of-purchase items at the registers, etc., are often direct-to-store from someone on a route servicing multiple stores, even competitors.
I regularly wrote Purchase Orders for direct to store for end cap and side promotions where the delivery would be sent direct to the store's back room and a sales rep would then stock or restock the end cap or side cap. There were often products in such displays that were not carried in the distribution centers or in other parts of the stores. Very often they weren't carried in other stores depending on the size and location.
The stores are broken out by categories in addition to size, for such things as "beach", "snow", "ethnic", etc. and very often we couldn't justify sending items in those categories through the distribution centers. The distribution centers wanted to move full pallets where possible, cases at a minimum, and never inner-packs, or piece pick. Inner-pack and piece pick orders were handled by the jobbers direct to store.
“The store chain signs an agreement with Frito Lay to allot X feet on the chip aisle for Frito-Lay products.”
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Its hard not to see how valuable such placement is. That’s why I’ve owned Pepsi stock for a long time. :)