The unit of sale initiative has helped reduce anomalies and discrepancies on units of measure in the different tiers of the industry supply chain. As electronic trading has increased and the ability of Systems to match the same products from multiple suppliers, irrespective of the pack size; the standardising of pack sizes although preferred, is not as essential as in the past.
Two of the major Wholesalers are now setting-up all new products as Pack & Per 1, irrespective of the actual pack quantity. The quantity supplied is both included in the description and in the new quantity in pack field.
The quantity in pack field is not currently supported by all Dealer Back Office System and extra care must be taken when comparing products from different suppliers.
This change has not been adopted by many other distributers who either cannot or do not wish to move to all products being Pack & Per 1, in part as this makes it more difficult to split packs. For the time being we are not therefore updating the Unit of Sale Guidance.