How to use it
- Pick a fixture preset, then type the real bay width, shelf depth, number of shelves and the height of each shelf space. The presets are starting points; measure the store.
- Set the days between deliveries, the safety days you want on top, and the minimum facings any listed product keeps.
- Add the products, or paste them from a spreadsheet: name, Arabic name, brand, width, height, depth, units a week. Tick the ones that live behind the counter. Add a pack shot to any product you want drawn as the real pack.
- Press Auto-arrange. Every brand becomes a block, its top seller sits on the eye-level shelf, bigger packs go lower, and anything that does not fit is listed with the reason.
- Drag blocks to taste, or select one and use the buttons. Watch the fill per shelf and the fair-share panel as you go.
- Download the PDF for the buyer or the store, the image for a slide, and save or export the file so you can pick it up again.
How facings are calculated
A facing is one pack showing at the front of the shelf, with more packs queued behind it. Two questions set how many facings a product needs: how many packs fit behind one facing, and how much stock the shelf has to hold between deliveries.
Packs per facing is the shelf depth divided by the pack depth, rounded down and never less than one. Stock needed is the weekly units multiplied by the days between deliveries plus the safety days, divided by seven. Facings needed is the stock needed divided by the packs per facing, rounded up, and never below the minimum you set.
Worked example: a pack 8 cm deep on a 40 cm shelf holds 5 packs per facing. It sells 14 a week, the store is delivered every 7 days and you want 2 safety days, so the shelf must hold 14 × 9 ÷ 7 = 18 packs. 18 ÷ 5 = 3.6, rounded up to 4 facings. The product table shows how many days each product’s facings cover, so you can see at a glance which rows would empty before the next delivery.
That is a replenishment view of the shelf: enough stock to last. The shelf space calculator gives the other view, fair share of shelf by sales value, and the fair-share panel here shows where the two disagree. The pharmacy planogram guide explains how to settle it in a category review.
How auto-arrange places the blocks
Brands are placed left to right in order of weekly units. Inside a brand, the product with the most weekly units goes on the shelf you marked as eye level; packs bigger than the brand’s median go toward the bottom; the rest stay close to eye level. A brand stays in one vertical column where the column fits the bay, so a shopper reads the brand as one block. A pack is never put on a shelf space shorter than the pack. When a column does not fit, its packs go one by one to the nearest shelf with room, and a pack with no room left is listed under the drawing with the reason. Worked layouts for the common categories are in the planogram examples.
Behind the counter
Check your local rules and the chain’s policy for which medicines must sit behind the counter; the tool never decides this for you. Products you tick stay in the list, are never drawn on the open shelf, and are listed separately on screen and in the PDF so the store knows they belong to the category.
Free printable planogram template
For a store visit with a pen, download the blank planogram template (PDF, two A4 landscape pages). Page one is a four-shelf bay drawn to a 2 mm per centimetre scale with fillable fields for store, category, date and prepared by; page two is a fillable product list and the steps in short. Fill it in on screen or on paper, then type the result into the maker when you are back at a desk. Once the layout is in the store, the planogram compliance checklist is how to check it stayed there.
Frequently asked questions
Is the planogram maker free, and do I need an account?
It is free and there is no account. The page runs in your browser: your fixture, products and layout never leave it. Save keeps a copy in this browser, Export file gives you a JSON file to keep or send to a colleague, and Import file loads it again.
How does it work out the facings?
From sales and days of supply. First it counts how many packs one facing holds front to back: shelf depth divided by pack depth, rounded down, at least 1. Then it works out the stock the shelf must hold between deliveries: weekly units times the days between deliveries plus safety days, divided by 7. Facings are that stock divided by the packs per facing, rounded up, and never below the minimum you set. Lock a product to set its facings by hand instead.
Can I use the PDF in a proposal to a pharmacy chain?
Yes. The PDF shows the bay to scale with each facing in the brand's colour, the fill per shelf, a product table with position, facings, weekly units and days of supply, and the fair-share table by brand. Chains that use their own template or software will still want the layout in that format; the PDF gives their buyer the picture and the numbers to put it there.
Can I show the real packs instead of colour blocks?
Yes. Each product has an Add button in the Image column: pick a PNG, JPG or WebP pack shot from your computer and every facing of that product is drawn with it, stretched to the pack's width and height, with the name on a strip at the bottom. The image is shrunk in your browser to 300 pixels on its long side and is never uploaded. Show images switches the whole drawing back to colour blocks when a buyer wants the plain view. Pack images go into the PDF, the PNG and the exported file; they cannot come in through Paste from Excel, so add them after the paste.
Does it handle Arabic product names?
Each product has an optional Arabic name. The Arabic labels switch draws the blocks with those names right to left, and the PDF lists both names in the product table. Arabic names in the pasted list go in the second column.
What about medicines that must stay behind the counter?
Tick behind the counter for them. They stay in the list for the record, are never drawn on the open shelf and are listed separately on screen and in the PDF. Which medicines must sit behind the counter is a matter of your local rules and the chain's policy; the tool never decides this for you.
Can I bring my product list in from Excel?
Yes. Copy the rows from a spreadsheet and use Paste from Excel. The columns, in order, are name, Arabic name, brand, width, height, depth in centimetres, units per week, behind the counter (yes or no) and an optional colour. A header row is skipped, and any row that cannot be read is listed with the reason.
Does it work on a phone?
On a screen narrower than 768 pixels the drawing is view only, so you can check a layout on the way to a store. Editing, dragging and the PDF are for a laptop or a tablet in landscape.
Taking the shelf into a category review? The category review pack in the planning kit gives you the slides for the review itself: what moved, why, and what you are asking for. The pharmacy merchandising guide puts the planogram inside the wider shelf plan.