Blogs

Get Ahead with Native Sun's A/B Cycle Checklist

By Bella Syslo posted 02-27-2025 02:44 PM

  

Aaron Gottlieb, owner of Native Sun Natural Foods Market in Jacksonville, Florida, is making the most of INFRA’s new A/B cycle. Promotions & Merchandising Advisory Specialist Rachel Keeler and Member Success Manager Kelly Miles had the privilege of visiting the store to see Native Sun’s plan in action.  

With a store as busy as his, Aaron knows the importance of staying focused on big-picture goals. With the help of IBIS Software, Aaron and his staff have created an automated system to help streamline biweekly promotions. The Native Sun team works a month in advance, ensuring that signage is printed and sorted by aisle by the first of the month. Because of this planning and preparation, it takes the staff less time to hang promo tags and complete other time-consuming tasks.  

By freeing up his staff, they can focus their attention on bigger picture items that help further their goals! Take a look at Native Sun’s step-by-step checklist below to see how the store works ahead and organizes tasks for the cycle turnover.  

Step 1: Download the INFRA Promotions File 

  • Log in to INFRA’s MOA 

  • Download the next months promo file from the Resource Hub 

Step 2: Process Promotions in IBIS Invoice Integrator (this requires purchase of IBIS software) 

  • Open Excel 

  • Click on IBIS Pricing Tool 

  • Click on ‘Promotions 

  • Select INFRA Deals 

  • Choose the INFRA promo file you just downloaded > click ‘OK’ 

  • Wait for processing (approximately 3 minutes) 

Step 3: Organize Promotions Data in Excel 

  • Filter out items not sold in the past 12 months (use last sold column) 

  • Remove Vitamins and Health & Beauty Care (HBC) items 

  • Review the generated worksheets: 

    • A Worksheet (First half of the month) 

    • B Worksheet (Second half of the month) 

    • AB Worksheet (Full month of deals) 

  • Finalize and save the filtered worksheets 

  • Create separate Nutrition (Vitamins & HBC) worksheets 

  • Refilter to only show Nutrition (Vitamins & HBC) 

  • Save new worksheets 

  • Finalize all worksheets > tool generates a folder with files: 

    • Grocery A, Grocery B, Grocery AB 

    • Nutrition A, Nutrition B, Nutrition AB

Step 4: Import Promotions into ECRS Catapult 

  • Open ECRS Catapult 

  • Navigate to worksheet area 

  • Create the following worksheets in the system: 

    • Grocery A, Grocery B, Grocery AB 

    • Nutrition A, Nutrition B, Nutrition AB 

  • Ensure Catapult automatically converts bulk deals (ex: 10/$10, 2/$5) into single unit pricing 

  • Commit all worksheets

Step 5: Print and Organize Tags for Store Use 

  • Print tags for each worksheet 

  • Organize them into folders by sales cycle 

  • Hand off tags to the Front-End Manager 

Step 6: In-store execution 

  • Staff receives organized tags 

  • Remove expired sales tags while keeping up full month sales 

  • Place next cycle's tags on shelves 

       

Native Sun’s practical and proactive checklist can inspire your store’s new A/B cycle change procedures! You can direct your checklist-related questions to Aaron here. For any A/B Cycle questions please feel free to reach out to Manager of Member Success Kelly Miles here


#INFRARetailerBlog
0 comments
48 views

Permalink