Walgreens Pharmacists to focus on customers

In a new article at the Arizona Daily Star, they share how Walgreens in the state of Arizona are changing their practices at the pharmacy counters. Instead of filling all prescriptions in stores, they're going to be sending some prescriptions to a center in Tempe to allow pharmacists in stores to focus on their customers. In addition to filling prescriptions, the outsourcing center will also take care of data entry of prescriptions and phone calls.

One concern that arises in these situations is the number of employees that will actually be serving customers in stores. There is also concern as to the safety of the patient when pharmacists in-store are not fulfilling the patient. Read the full story here.

What do you think? Could this potentially turn into a way to better suit the in-store shopper?

Pricing Strategies: How to Price Smarter in Uncertain Times

In the free whitepaper,How to Price Smarter in Uncertain Times, experts in pricing strategies outline what retailers must do in turbulent economic times to not only compete with other retailers but to win customers and achieve profit. From the report, there are five key solutions that pricing decision makers can apply to keep profits growing during economic downturns. All are applicable to consumer-facing businesses; some have relevance for B2B companies as well.

Download a copy of the whitepaper.

If you are interested in learning more about how effective pricing strategies can help your retail organizations, we invite you to join us this July 14 in Chicago at the Pricing Strategies at Retail Event. This is the only event that confronts today's critical pricing and marketing optimization. Meet with brands, retailers and pricing experts to share strategic solutions help grow market share immediately and realize new loyalty for years to come.

Download the brochure today!

In-Store Marketing for Orange Juice

Be on the lookout for a very friendly display that sounds like Tom Selleck, urging you to purchase Florida orange juice. The mustached celebrity's voice is slatted to be on in-store displays for Florida Department of Citrus, as the company shifts from heavy television marketing to in-store presence.

The Ledger reports, "a recorded message in the cooler from OJ spokesman Selleck will remind shoppers "Florida orange juice (is) healthy, pure and simple," Leigh Killeen, deputy executive director for marketing, told the commission. Side panels will reinforce that message.
And when shoppers open the clear plastic lid to get the refrigerated OJ product inside, the cooler will spritz an orange fragrance.

The department will roll out the cooler displays as a pilot program in Florida stores later this year, Executive Director Ken Keck said. If that proves successful, the talking, spritzing coolers will be available nationwide."

Selling OJ Focuses on Grocery Stores

Online shoppers going straight for webpages

According to a new study done by Mark Simpson, MD, many online shoppers don't use a search engine when going to make a purchase from their favorite websites.

They also found that:
• 82% of respondents have abandoned their shopping basket in the last year
• 69% of respondents would not go back to a website if the purchasing process had been unsatisfactory
• Marketers and Consumers alike are unable to identify what makes a good website and what makes a bad website
• 63% of respondents now know the web address of their favorite websites, rather than having to use a Search Engine

Read more about the study here.

West Coast Grocer Set To Drop Prices

Albertsons, the West Coast grocer, is set to drastically drop prices on many items throught their stores. These price drops are in response to their dwindling sales and inability to keep up with with discount markets and superstores. The LATimes reports that the initiative is aimed at regaining budget-minded customers both from its rivals and those lost to discounters such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. The report also notes that, Albertsons' move comes at a time when "everyone is fighting for traffic right now. They are all aware that consumers are under a lot of pressure," said Stella Kapur, the supermarket analyst at Standard & Poor's, the New York corporate credit rating company.

Will we see other regional grocers following Albertson's lead?

Tips for Growing Store Brands

Here is Tom Pirovano, Director, Industry Insights, Nielsen tips for helping stores expand their private labels as reported in Brandweek.

• Study the category consumer before going upscale. Consumer understanding is the common thread among top-selling brands. It’s not enough for a retailer to roll out a quality product in premium packaging.

• Disguise your premium store brands. Many consumers still associate private label with cheap knockoffs. There - I said it. But what if they don’t know it’s a store brand? Look to position premium store brands as exclusive products like Choxie at Target and Canopy at Walmart.

• Get your pricing right. The price gap between store brands and national brands varies significantly across categories. The same shopper who chooses private label bottled water for a 3% discount may require at least 20% savings for private label barbecue sauce.

• Offer multiple brands in multiple tiers. Although Costco may be the exception, most retailers are finding growth with multiple store brands. No one brand can stand for value and gourmet and healthy eating.

• Eliminate weak links. One bad product experience can hurt the entire store brand, not to mention the retail banner itself. Product quality needs to be consistent across each store brand. Your brand’s perceived quality is only as good as its weakest SKU.

• Drive trial. If your store brand is really as good as the national brand (or better), let your shoppers try it. Offer a free package with a $50 purchase. Consider a trial size or in-store product demos.

• Promote your store brands. There’s a wide range of feature ad support for private label. Using ECRM’s Marketgate data, we found that private label’s percent of feature ads ranged from 45% at Wegmans to 25% at HEB to only 10% of ads at Publix.

• Don’t be too quick to drive out value brands. Some value brands can drive lower price and higher margins than retailers can achieve through private label. The shampoo category is an excellent example with some well-known brands at very low prices.

• Embrace a cause. Use package labeling to show how your store brand supports local suppliers, promotes health & wellness, saves the environment, or funds local charities. You’ll find that many of these causes attract similar consumers. Regardless of sales performance, taking the high road can help to build a retailer’s image.

• Understand the difference between strong sales vs. strong brand equity. Walmart’s Great Value brand claims to be the #1 food brand across categories, but would shoppers ever choose Great Value over a national brand at the same price point?

What other tips can retailers use to grow their private labels?

Check out his article for a bonus tip!

Walmart's Brand Showcases increase user time on website

In a recent article at RetailWire, they look at Walmart has added content and banners to the website to increase brand exposure. This initiative has increased the time spent on the Walmart webpage 68%. Interactive tools such as Kellogg's breakfast calculator and Zyrtec's pollen calculator have proven to be tools that work in these instances. Another part of the Walmart website that has proven to be especially successful is the sampling campaigns. Read the full story on what WalMart is doing here.

US supermarkets successfully changing product mix and enhancing loyalty

Australian Food News reports,

“The industry showed its resilience in the most challenging economy in modern history,” FMI President and CEO, Leslie Sarasin, said. “Retailers aggressively discounted products and increased their lines of private brands to help American families lower their grocery bills. At the same time, they continued to control costs by improving efficiency and productivity, a hallmark of this industry.”

What else is the American grocery store doing to enhance the customer experience whilst gaining a profit in these tough economic times. With the increase in private labels, we may see more customer loyalty to specific retailers as customers learn to like specific private labels.

Target Mirrors Wal-Mart, Recession Relief in the Grocery Aisle

According to the Wall Street Journal, Target is set to add more mini-groceries to its stores in an effort to compete with Wal-Mart during the economic downturn. Known for skewing up market, the Minneapolis based retailer now needs to compete with many upwardly mobile shoppers who find themselves heading to Wal-Mart to save money.

According to the article, Target has tried to emphasize food previously. In 1995, it opened the first of 245 SuperTargets, which include a full array of groceries. But it has been reluctant to rapidly add to those 175,000-square-foot stores, unable to find enough profitable locations. Its sales last year of groceries, including pharmacy and beauty products, accounted for 37% of revenue compared with 59% of Wal-Mart's U.S. department-store sales.

The new minigroceries inside existing discount department stores have increased food sales 50% at test stores, and lifted sales of other items as well, Mr. Steinhafel said during a tour of a Target store in Sun Prairie, Wis., late last month. The grocery section there sported signs proclaiming, "Eat Well. Pay Less." in a nod to its "Expect More. Pay Less." marketing slogan.

Will there be an upswing in profits as Target expands their grocery offerings? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

Campbell Soup Company Extends V8 Fusion Line

According to this article in TradingMarkets, Cambell Soup Company’s introduction of two new flavors for their V8 Fusion line will help bridge the “vegetable gap”, which is the difference between what consumers should eat and what they actually do eat. Most Americans do not get their recommended intake of daily vegetables, but with the addition of the two new flavors (Goji Raspberry and Passionfruit Tangerine) which taste like fruit, well it might help moms in getting their kids to eat their veggies!

Phil McGee, director of Insights & Category Management at Campbell Soup Company will be speaking at our upcoming Shopper Insights in Action 2009 conference this July in Chicago. For more information about the conference and about Phil, please visit our Shopper Insights in Action 2009 event page.

Costco, Safeway Ensure Private Labels Won't Fade With Recession

According to BNet.com, Richard Galanti, Costco’s CFO said that, when the company sees independent brand testing, its Kirkland Signature products consistently are competitive with any label when quality, value and price are weighed. Once, private labels were considered step-down merchandise that didn’t really deserve the term brand, but that has changed. “I don’t want to be so arrogant about it, but the Kirkland Signature has become a brand,” he said.

According to The Nielsen Co. store brand dollar sales at food, drug and mass merchandise stores grew 10.2 percent last year compared to just 2.6 percent for national brands. Worse for national brand manufacturers, private label dollar sales gained 2.6 percent in units as their own unit sales fell by 2.2 percent. Those trends have continued into 2009, Todd Hale, Nielsen senior vice president for Shopper and Consumer Insight, noted. He added that private label versus national brand growth during 2008 was similar in pattern to what was observed during the 2001 recession, but, back then, retailers weren’t making the kind of strides in packaging, quality, on-shelf presence and all-over brand building – a la Wal-Mart and its Great Value label – that we see today.

Retailers are becoming increasingly aggressive in building store brands. Safeway is among those companies that have been expanding private label initiatives to other retailers, but it isn’t alone. For example, Wakefern, the cooperative that supplies ShopRite supermarkets in the New York Metropolitan area, has opened up its wholesaling services to non-competing retailers outside its own system in significant part to drive sales of its private label products.

For the full article, please click here.

What strategies should retailers put in place when selling private labels?

Private label brands helping Safeway

According to BNet, Safeway has received a lift in their revenue from their private label brands. Not only have they sold more in this time of economic turn down, but they also receive a higher margin on their brands as opposed to name brands.

Safeway's CEO Steve Burd stated, "We are outpacing the growth in national brands by 1,000 basis points. And so that says a lot. And I don’t see that dissipating. I don’t expect that number to be much different in quarters two, three and four. And I’m not sure it’s going to be different in 2010."

This isn't the only place its occurring, as companies providing branded products are now facing competition from their customers when their products are on the shelves.

Brandweek offers great advice on shopper marketing to Hispanic customers. Here's an excerpt form their recent article:

What’s the best way to reach the Hispanic consumer? Consider throwing out that TV budget and focusing on in-store media instead. And don’t go out of your way to make your brand look "Hispanic." Such are the insights of Carlos Boughton, brand director of Tecate and Tecate Light, Heineken USA and Manuel Wernicky, president, chief ideas officer and managing partner at Adrenalina. The two collaborated on a shopping list below for marketers aiming to tap the country’s largest and fastest-growing minority group.

Check out their full list on their article,

Hispanic Shopper Marketing Do's and Don'ts

What are some other "do's and dont's" when it comes to the Hispanic consumer?

Dissecting the Downturn Generation

A new report was released by Information Resources Inc., titled “Dissecting the Downturn Generation,” in which they discuss the changing attitude of individuals growing up in the recession and how the recession will influence their purchases even when the economy picks up. According to the report, there are three types of shoppers emerging from the recession.

Optimists - Consumers who believe "things will get better during the next 12 months," are spending wisely, cutting back selectively and making sacrifices as a last resort.

Maintainers - Consumers who agree that, "the economy won't get worse, but it won't get better either," and are also spending wisely, but are more aggressive about making cutbacks.

Pessimists - Consumers who identify with the direst predictions, believing, "if you think times are hard now, next year will be worse," and are cutting back wherever possible and hunting tirelessly to find deals.

For the full report, please click here.

What will this mean for shopper marketing? How will you change or sustain your marketing to cater to these new shoppers?

Land O Lakes Puts Shopper Marketing Focus on Cheese

According to PROMO, Land O Lakes crunched some of its shopper marketing data to come up with its first in-store program specifically designed to boost sales of its premium deli cheeses. PROMO staff writer, Patricia Odell reports that the company and its agency, MarketingLab, took a close look at the profile of its target and the typical deli shopper: a stay-at-home mom in her 40s with a high household income and children still living in the home. The analysis also found that this mom is saving money by cooking and eating at home rather than dinning out, but would like to prepare something special. Land O Lakes is capitalizing on the shopper who is looking to cook more, if not better at home--even if the recession's crunch has yet to hit their family. Land O Lakes decision to roll out a new product amid the financial crisis may be a risky gamble. What do you think?

Benefits of manufacturers working with retailers

Earlier this month, we posted about what the benefits were if manufacturers and retailers worked together. I wanted to know more about this topic, so I turned to LinkedIn to ask the question. Vivek V. Krishnan responded with a great answer I'd like to share with you:


It is easy to see the benefits for the retailer and the manufacturers have in coming together, sharing information, possibly resources and streamlining the entire supply chain to get the product right up to the shopper. ( By the term shopper I think you mean the buyer of the product. Typically, a shopper is not necessarily one who buys the product but one who simply spends some time interacting with a product or the retail environment). One would think that the most common benefit to the streamlining of the supply chain to the buyer of the product is reduced prices. A good lean supply chain would reduce various costs for the retailer and the manufacturer the benefits of which one would hope would pass on to the end buyer. Simple enough!!

I strongly believe however that there are other benefits to the union of the two parties for the end buyer.

Before exploring the benefits, one would have to outline certain assumptions on the coming together of the two said parts of the value chain. The union has been carefully put together in accordance to the best practices prevalent in the industry today and that the information and resource sharing is whole. The retailer is willing to share the benefits gained from the partnership with the manufacturer with the end buyer.

The benefits to the end buyer then are as follows:

1) The price of the products would come down as a result of lowered inventory holdings, shorter supply chains, increased margins, better forecasting capabilities etc. This as I had said earlier would be the most obvious outcome of such a partnership.

2) The diffusion of new products would be quicker. Today, the buyers find out about the launch of a product much before the actual arrival of the product on retail shelves, which results in many days of frustrated waiting and decreased interest levels. Such a collaboration will greatly shorten the time to market for new products and the buyers will benefit. Please note that while this may be novel during the first few times, there is a risk that this short time to market will soon become a hygiene factor and buyers will begin to expect it.

3) As Reno before me said, information and training about the new products can be given to the end users and buyers more effectively through the retail channel partners.

4) The retail store can act as a single point of contact for the buyers for all things relating to the product manufacturers, such as after sales services, replacement of faulty products, sourcing of product related accessories, promotions, upgradation, servicing of warranties and guarantees etc.

These are few of the benefits that I think would affect the buyers greatly with a very effective collaboration between the retailers and manufacturers.

Shopper Insights in Action 2009 Chair Heads Up Coca-Cola Sponsored Commission on Shopper Marketing

According to Promomagazine.com, Coca-Cola North America is sponsoring the creation of a commission dedicated to shopper marketing. Diane Wallace, Vice President, Shopper Marketing, said, “Our strategy is to provide leadership to our retail customers in the area of shopper insight-driven shopper merchandising and marketing solutions in store,” Diane Wallace, vice president of shopper marketing, Coca-Cola North America, said. “Our objective is to drive more beverage sell through to shoppers, and to do this by connecting with shoppers in store through relevant shopper insight-driven ideas and solutions that include our brands.”

Diane Wallace is speaking at our upcoming Shopper Insights in Action 2009 conference this July in Chicago. For more information about the conference and about Diane, please visit our Shopper Insights in Action 2009 event page.

Online consumers spending less time shopping

According to Digital Media Traffic, UK users are shifting their time online from shopping to new media in the forms of Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. According to the article, consumers in the UK spend 8.6% of their time on line shopping while spending 9.8% of their time using social media. The article suggests that retailers should shift some of their marketing to new media efforts. What do you think about this?

Shopper do, Shopper don't

BrandWeek has a new article up about the do's and don'ts of shopper marketing.

Do talk to the shoppers, engage the shareholders, push the boundaries, and measure and evaluate.

Don't focus exclusively on the shelf, apply traditional creative rules, think retail is the same as traditional media, think all shoppers are alike, limit your thinking to your brand or even category.

Take an in-depth look at the items above here.

Shopper Insights in Action Speaker Profile: Chris Borek, Target

Chris is a Senior Manager at Target in charge of external sales and partnerships for the retailer’s multi-channel digital marketing division. His current role focuses on in-store digital marketing, online, as well as emerging technologies. Chris works with agencies, brands and partners to determine how to most effectively message to Target’s affluent Guest. During Chris’ 10 years at Target he has held roles in Finance, Merchandising, Technology and has also managed a SuperTarget store. Prior to coming to Target, Chris spent time at West Publishing Company in a variety of Finance and Accounting roles.

Chris received his MBA from the University of Minnesota focusing on Finance and IT and also has his CPA.

Chris is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


For more information about the speakers at Shopper Insights in Action 2009, please visit our speaker page.

About Shopper Insights in Action:

The event is the industry’s #1 event focused on driving change at retail by truly understanding shopper behavior. This is where the brightest in the retail and brand world converge to stimulate game-changing ideas through actionable case studies and uncensored peer-to-peer conversations. It tackles today’s mission-critical topics covered by those leading the charge. Topics include shopper marketing. green at retail, shopper psychology, collaboration techniques, virtual shopping, shopping trends, engagement, shopper loyalty, retail activation, shopper marketing and more. 2009 is all about CHANGE. Take control of your brand, your category and your business.

Luxury Brands Focus on Outlet Shops

This post on RetailWire highlights how several luxury brands are beginning to shift their focus from their retail mall locations to outlet shops which include overstocks, canceled orders, and many of the same goods found at retail mall locations but of lesser quality.

Outlet malls are seeing much more traffic now and companies like Kate Spade, Lucky Brand Jeans, Juicy Couture and True Religion are among some of the high end brands that are moving into the outlet space to get a piece of the action. Will these companies see the tremendous success that Coach has seen in their outlets?

Piggly Wiggly conforming to their customers needs

Don't have time to shop at the grocery store? No problem if you live in South Carolina and there's a Piggly Wiggly near by. Seeing that the grocery shopping trend was headed online, they created a program called Click N' Shop. Click N' Shop is a way for customers to order what they want online from home, and pick it up at the grocery store at a later time.

Source: SCNow.Com

What Makes Shoppers Buy?

According to Brandweek.com, Point of Purchase Advertising International, a global retail marketing association, launched a study last week to gauge the effectiveness of shopper marketing techniques in major retail outlets.

The study, dubbed Marketing at Retail Initiative (MARI), will leverage retail research across the supermarket, drug and convenience store and mass merchandise channels. The goal is to determine which shopper marketing displays work best, and, more importantly, how and why these techniques influence consumers to buy.

Major companies and retailers participating in the research include 7-Eleven, Ahold, Frito-Lay North America, Pepsi-Cola North American Beverages and Walgreens. U.K.-based retail research firm SheridanGlobal Group is conducting the study.

What do you hope will be the major findings of the MARI study? Will the results directly impact your decisions moving forward? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

How to Increase Consumer Spending in Troubling Times

This article in the NY Times highlights that as shoppers are becoming more and more reluctant to open their wallets, retailers are starting to adjust their advertising and marketing to play up the aspects of value of what they sell.

Companies like Whole Foods, and J.C. Penny have even changed their campaign approaches to emphasize more saving and better pricing on their products. For example, Home Depot recently changed their slogan from “You can do it. We can help” to “More saving. More doing.” As these campaigns roll out over the next couple of months it will be interesting to see the effect it will have on consumer spending.

Shoppers to access in-store coupons on their iPhone and iPod Touch

According to Tulsa Today, shoppers will now have the ability to look up and use coupons while they shop. No more paper clutter and scissors--both economically and environmentally friendly.

Approved by Apple, Coupon Sherpa (http://www.couponsherpa.com/) is available at the iPhone App Store. Finish Line, Zales Jewelers, Coldwater Creek, Gordon’s Jewelers, CompUSA, Jackson-Hewitt and Tiger Direct are among the over 100 retailers that shoppers can find coupons for on the application. Shoppers can find coupons for men’s and women’s clothing, electronics, restaurants, pet supplies, sporting goods, and local services.

For the full article from Tulsa Today, please click here.