The programme will consist of a team of auditors, who will visit all the major Alliance Boots chemists on a monthly basis and check the availability of up to 250 products. They will also check the stores for point-of-sale in-store compliance.
As well as the monthly visits to larger stores, every outlet of the merged Boots and Alliance Unichem chain will be visted once a quarter. The activity was commissioned in May this year.
William Jennings, head of productivity and development at Alliance Boots, said: "On-shelf availability is a key measure of customer satisfaction. It is vital that we understand the availability of products in our shops and that we continue to focus on our performance in this area."
He said that GfK Field Marketing had been appointed because of their experience, and the extent of their coverage, allowing them to audit all 1,500 shops in the UK and Republic of Ireland.
Alliance Boots was formed by the merger of Alliance UniChem and Boots Group last month.
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