Good news for specialty retailers: discount stores, drug stores and supermarkets are cutting back on the amount of products they carry after years of packing shelves with an ever-expanding assortment. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, analysts say these stores will be trimming the assortment of products by at least 15 percent.

In some cases, that could mean cutting down on the number of different kinds of super glue offered. In other cases, it could mean exiting categories altogether, which could provide some relief for specialty dealers that have seen mass merchants encroach on their territory. Large super-stores testing “smaller stores,” such as Meijer recently announced in Chicago, signals a similar shift in direction.

"All that go-go 1990s where we were adding items in and adding items in, and people wanted more, more, more, more choice ... just didn't pay off," says Catherine Lindner, Walgreens divisional vp for marketing development was quoted as saying. "People say, 'Whoa, you're bombarding me. Help me figure out what I need'."