Creating Sensational Seasons
By Mary Ellen Kuhn
Selling seasonal candy affords the perfect opportunity
for thinking outside the box. And, despite some disappointing
numbers recently, there’s still plenty of growth potential.
One of the toughest things
about selling seasonal candy is dealing with the compression of the
shopping cycle. Take the winter holidays, for example. For the past three
years, sales in early December have not been all that great. The real
retail rush has been concentrated in the 7 to 10 days before Christmas,
along with some strong gift card sales in the week after.
With shoppers in stores for less time, the impact on
seasonal impulse buys is obvious. Meanwhile, planned seasonal purchases
have taken a hit thanks to the less-than-stellar economic climate.
“If you’re keeping a close eye on your
budget, it’s easy to decide that, ‘This year, I can get along
with only five bags of Halloween candy instead of the six I got last
year’ or ‘I’m going to cut back a bit on Easter basket
novelty candy,’” points out Jim Corcoran, vice president of
trade relations for the National Confectioners Association. Still, Corcoran
and other industry experts have not given up on seasonal candy growth.
Take a lesson from Hallmark, advises marketing guru
and St. Joseph’s University professor John Stanton, Ph.D. The giant
card and gift retailer recognized early on that the best way to generate
incremental sales was to create more card-buying occasions. The same
approach can be applied to candy. It’s easier to sell more on a
series of new occasions than it is to get people to buy more for the same
holiday occasions they’re already shopping for, says Stanton.
Rather than merely trying to eke out increases at the
Big Four holidays, create promotions and/or products linked to other
special events—everything from graduation, First Communion, St.
Patrick’s Day, back-to-college, he suggests.
If the demographics warrant it, ethnic populations
afford a particularly strong marketing option. Consider a candy promotion
targeted to Hispanics for Three Kings Day, for example, says Stanton.
Or, as Joan Sweeting national sales manager for
Madelaine Chocolate Novelties, suggests, think Thanksgiving! Marketers at
Madelaine have found that retailers that create an in-store focus on
Thanksgiving tend to be successful with it because they don’t have a
lot of competition, Sweeting points out.
Channel strategies
Last-minute holiday shopping is an issue for retailers
in most classes of trade, but that scenario may create an opportunity for
supermarkets, Corcoran suggests. After all, most Americans continue to make
at least a weekly trek to the supermarket. So how about some weekly candy
and candy/gift specials from grocery retailers? A strong assortment,
creatively promoted and merchandised, accompanied by a decent everyday low
price on red and green candy “staples” could serve up a full
six-week growth opportunity for this channel. Far too many supermarket
retailers are conceding the category to drug stores and mass merchandisers,
Corcoran emphasizes.
There also are untapped opportunities in the
convenience channel, where men are a core group of shoppers.
And—let’s face it—the average male is a notorious
last-minute shopper. So why not create a few SKUs of truly sensational gift
items and deliver a bona fide shopping solution for those harried guys who
would love to find a great gift or maybe even a sweet add-on gift for their
significant others. And the good news here is that this is one time when
price is not the object.
As Corcoran points out, many men love to do their
seasonal shopping in drug stores because they’re convenient and
compact. Well, that’s equally—if not more so—true for
convenience stores. So why not capitalize on that?
Of course, while we’re talking c-store,
don’t forget the seasonal impulse items for the countertop. This is a
perfect place for traditional favorites as well as new and special
offerings—perhaps a regional favorite or a seasonal limited edition
item. n
Bright Idea: Gift Cards and Candy
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the growing
popularity of gift cards may be taking a bit of a toll on seasonal candy
gift sales.
So why not seize upon the trend as a candy marketing
opportunity, suggests Ellen Tolley, media relations manager for the
National Retail Federation and a speaker at last month’s National
Confectioners Association State of the Industry conference.
"Why not merchandise around the gift card
craze?" said Tolley. "Why not create a box of chocolates that can
hold a gift card?"
Merchandising Must
Don’t mark down too early. We all know that consumers are shopping later and later, so
don’t be an "enabler" by encouraging the mindset of,
"I’ll wait ‘till later when it’s on sale!"
Going Upscale Ups Seasonal SalesAt Chicago Area
Jewel Supermarkets
Expanding the space allocated to premium chocolate
during the 2004 winter holiday season paid off nicely for Chicago area
Jewel Supermarkets.
Tyler Jeffrey, vice president of sales and marketing
for Chicago-based World’s Finest Chocolate, was playing close
attention to how things went for Jewel this holiday season. That’s
because the retailer opted to stock World’s Finest Chocolate seasonal
product display shippers featuring assorted premium SKUs in 168 of its
stores.
In fact, according to Jeffrey, about 14 percent of
Jewel’s winter holiday seasonal sales came from premium confections
vs. just about 5 percent in the prior year. World’s Finest products
accounted for 30 percent of that total, Jeffrey reports.
Overall, seasonal chocolate category sales for the
Christmas season climbed by 0.6 percent for Jewel. That may not sound like
a huge increase, but across the board in the supermarket sector (as tracked
by IRI), sales declined by 8.4 percent, so clearly that growth is
significant.
The World’s Finest displays Jewel stocked
(primarily within the holiday confections aisle) featured four of the
company’s items attractively presented in boxes suitable for either
self-gifting or more traditional gift-giving. They included Mint Meltaways
and Caramel Whirls, both in 5.5-ounce boxes with a suggested retail price
of $2.99; milk chocolate-covered Continental Almonds in a 14-ounce box; and
milk chocolate-covered pecans in a 12-ounce box. The latter two items each
retailed for $4.99.
For 2005, World’s Finest will add another
SKU—dark chocolate covered almonds.
One final bit of good news: The addition of the
World’s Finest SKUs did not cannibalize sales of other premium brands
the Jewels stocked, according to Jeffrey.
It’s a success for us," says Jeffrey,
"but it’s also a success for the premium category."