Crane Co.’s Glenn Butler Defends Tracking Individual Location Product Sales

Glenn Butler, vice president and chief technology officer of Crane Merchandising Systems, claims software systems that track individual location sales will not result in the need for vending operators to warehouse an overabundance of stock keeping units (SKUs). Butler defends tracking location sales in response to a podcast aired 12/22/09 in which a vending operator claimed it made more sense to simply stock the top selling items in the warehouse. Butler claimed that tracking individual location sales usually results in a reduction in SKUs in the warehouse. He further says it is important that the planogram of each machine be tailored to the demographics of the individual location and developed using sales data from the machine.