Ted Gladson of Chicago founded the store design and merchandising company Gladson Interactive in 1971 and served as the president of the company until his retirement in 2005. While president, Ted Gladson developed image and dimension databases for planograms.
A planogram is an image that shows how products in a retail store should be arranged. Such diagrams show what shelf a product should be on and how many facings. In retail, products need to be situated at the edge of a shelf with labels outward toward the customer, a method known as facing. Planograms demonstrate the number of facings for each product on a shelf. This is determined by a product’s stock keeping unit (SKU) number. When planograms are used, precise product placement can increase sales.
Planogram techniques vary from simple photographs of sections to highly detailed schematics that determine exact placement of products. Since it is an important step in product placement, some retailers hire outside visual merchandisers to help develop planograms, while other stores have in-house specialists.
