Stocking Smart, Scaling Fast: Behind Farmley’s Insights-Driven Growth Story
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Right assortment, seamless availability, and strong discoverability form the holy trinity of QComm success, according to Pankaj Goyal, Core Team Member at Farmley overseeing strategy and growth.
Now in its third year, the healthy snacks and dry fruits brand has carved out a successful QComm journey, expanding into regions of the country that were once beyond reach.
“QComm has been a game-changer, providing support for brands like ours, by unlocking market access,” says Pankaj highlighting the speed and diversity of growth on QComms.
In a conversation peppered with interesting anecdotes on the ‘democratic’ roasted cashewnut category, strategies for boosting demand for long-tail SKUs, and tackling the assortment gap, Pankaj took us behind the scenes of Farmley’s remarkable QComm growth journey.
Some highlights from the conversation:
QComm Journey Begins: Navigating Supply, Assortment, and Consumer Behavior
Our QComm journey started in early 2022, right as the QComm boom was taking off. It took us almost a year’s time to onboard on all the platforms - Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart and Big Basket.
To start with, QComm was very different from eComm from a supply chain and operational point of view as well as in terms of the time spent by consumers.
Since QComms have limited space, platforms are very choosy about the assortment. So we had to choose the assortment on QComm very wisely, focusing on a smaller assortment with fast-moving SKUs that we were confident we could sell on QComms.
Second - Generally, on Amazon or Flipkart, an eComm consumer takes anywhere between 15 and 25 minutes to place an order because they navigate through the app, explore the product range and then decide on what to buy.
On the other hand, on QComm the consumer is clear and comes to the app to buy very specific things. They're already in a hurry. So they log in, and buy things very swiftly, spending maybe less than 10 minutes.
So, we made changes to our supply chain and operations, considering the various aspects of QComm demand, and that's how we were able to scale QComm at a very early stage.
QComm Challenges: Supply Chain Efficiency & SKU Discoverability
The two major challenges for us on QComm were supply chain management and the discoverability of our SKUs.
Now, initially, instead of launching products across dark stores in multiple cities, we started with a few SKUs in one city where we ramped up availability. Once we understood what the product potential and demand were in that city, we expanded into the other dark stores.
Slowly, we expanded our assortment in this manner. Once the assortment was selling well, then it was about ensuring it was available everywhere.
The second challenge was discoverability.
Even if the assortment is available across all platforms at over 90% OSA (On-Shelf Availability), if it is not discoverable on the platform, then you won’t be able to scale the business. However ensuring discoverability was tricky because, within QComm, space is limited. You should know how to best showcase your product on the platform.
Initially, there were some teething issues because of limited attribution data. We were struggling with not enough data on impressions, not knowing the CVR and CTR %.
Then there was a lack of understanding of why certain SKUs were selling well on eComms but not QComm. So we were in a black-box situation concerning discoverability.
Bridging the Data Gap: SKU-Level Insights for Better Decisions
Despite receiving some platform insights, we struggled with SKU-level data, leading to potential sales loss.
For instance, in the Roasted Makhana category, certain flavours performed well on QComm but not others, while in general trade (GT), those same flavours sold well. We couldn't determine if the issue was availability or impressions, as the audience remained the same across both channels.
Crawler-based data was disorganised and unsystematic. However, after working with GobbleCube for 4-5 months, we now have structured insights. Their intuitive dashboard simplifies analysis, requiring minimal effort on our part.
Enhancing Category Management with Data-Driven Insights
GobbleCube insights have made category manager discussions seamless. During calls, we use the dashboard in real-time to identify immediate actions.
Previously, availability concerns led to disagreements—while their data showed overall availability was fine, we felt gaps. Now, we see the real issue: inventory imbalances across cities. This allows for direct, data-backed action.
Additionally, we now monitor SKU-level impressions, conversion rates, and pincode level pricing. This helps refine our assortment strategy and ensure MOP compliance, allowing us to request price corrections when needed.
Solving Demand Projection with Real-Time Inventory Insights
The challenge with demand projection was due to the unavailability of data and insights on SOH (Stock On-Hand) or the DOI (Days of Inventory). Data shared by the category team needed a lot of work at our end using a dedicated resource.
Say, for instance, inventory considering during and after an event. For example, if my current DRR (daily sales) is 100 units and then during an event like IPL when platform sales see huge spikes, my DRR goes to 1000 per day. But once the event is over, my DRR does not reset to 100 but shifts base to maybe 150.
Now this needs inventory planning for which we need SOH and DOI insights on hand.
Since all this information is available on the GobbleCube dashboard, we can immediately take a call on the stock levels and increase or decrease them. So taking those calls is very easy for us.
Leveraging Impressions to Drive Demand for Long-Tail SKUs
Insights on impressions have enabled us to drive sales for SKUs that would otherwise be overlooked as long-tail. Along with search ads, we also focus on merch ads to generate impressions for these long-tail SKUs.
It is known that shoppers often impulsively add other items that get recommended at the checkout counter. Suppose, while buying a bag of chips and a beverage, at the checkout page, you see an ad for a Farmley Makhana pack and it looks good and is also at a discount of 40-50%. Chances are that you will add it to the cart. So tapping into this behaviour has helped us experiment with different SKUs, and discover and create demand for them.
Closing the Assortment Gap with Competition Benchmarking
One of the biggest challenges we’ve tackled with competition benchmarking is closing the assortment gap.
By monitoring competitor brands’ offerings, be it in terms of category share, flavours, grammages, pack sizes, etc, we were able to identify the assortment opportunities.
For example, recently, we noticed that our Roasted Cashewnut category was not growing as well as the other categories. We dug deep into insights on the category and its dominating brands. Turns out, no brand had the upper hand in this category. There were 5-6 brands with equal shares and no brand saw any significant increase or decrease in share.
The category insights clearly showed us that to capture the lion's share, we needed to differentiate ourselves—whether it’s through unique flavours, packaging, or pricing. That’s the only way we’d be able to outpace the competition in this space.
