At the start of 2026, business confidence lifted across New Zealand as genuine signs of economic recovery began to emerge.
Inflation was easing, consumer sentiment was stabilising, and growth appeared to be edging back onto the agenda. That optimism has since been tempered by renewed instability in the Middle East, reminding us how quickly global uncertainty can interrupt fragile momentum.
While this period of disruption will pass, as previous cycles inevitably have, the experience reinforces a more important truth: the retail and FMCG landscape has fundamentally changed. When growth does return, it will not be captured by brands operating with yesterday’s models of market execution.
Most suppliers today are navigating soft revenue growth, margin pressure, and heightened scrutiny on return on investment. Against this backdrop, the most significant structural shift we are seeing is retail centralisation. Decisions around ranging, promotions, pricing architecture and display strategy are increasingly made at head office, informed by deep category insight and commercial contribution data.
In response, some suppliers have drawn the wrong conclusion. Reinvesting in category management and key account management but believing that central agreements reduce the need for field investment, they have scaled back “boots on the ground.” The unintended consequence has been the emergence of what we describe as an activity execution gap.
While strategy may be agreed centrally, success is still determined locally. A product that is unavailable, invisible, or poorly activated at the point of purchase will underperform, regardless of how strong the head-office agreement may be. In a tough economic environment, this gap becomes a silent erosion of ROI that most brands can no longer afford.
At the heart of this issue sits what we call the “Dark Zone.” Many FMCG businesses have a structural blind spot. They can clearly see what is sold in and what is scanned out but lack visibility of what happens in between, on shelf, in chillers, and across promotional displays.
Read more from Tony Puppyn, Managing Director, Storelink in the latest issue here
