In the days when the weekly ‘big shop’ was the norm for families with children at home, convenience stores’ focus for household and laundry purchases used to be confined to older adults, smaller households and distress shopping. Now as society changes, with more women working and consumers making more frequent shops from convenience retailers on our doorstep, convenience retailers’ share of sales of household and laundry sales is growing. As an indication, AC Nielsen values the Clothes Care market at £119.3m in convenience and growing by 6.1%, outpacing the total market.
But there’s a note of caution from Matthew Trembath, Channel Category Manager at Unilever, who encourages convenience retailers and their wholesale suppliers to find ways to reassure their customers that they are not paying above the odds:
“Consumers are looking for the best deal and, while they accept that they often pay a premium for the convenience of shopping locally, they are less inclined to do this on large items such as laundry. Look out for price-marked packs which offer convenience retailers an opportunity to reassure their customers that they are still getting great value as well as the convenience.”
The end of P&G’s ShelfHelp
P&G is refocusing its trade communications programme, including ShelfHelp, as it currently exists, into working more closely with its wholesale and retail partners. The company is streamlining its trade activity and taking a fresh approach in its communication strategy for independent retailers, including how it shares its planograms. Going forward, P&G will not be using ShelfHelp.co.uk. Instead, all of its category planograms will be hosted on the corporate P&G website in a specially dedicated hub, alongside its brand and corporate news. Convenience and wholesale remain important channels for P&G. P&G has leading brands across a number of categories and will continue to share knowledge and insight with its retail and wholesale partners, to ensure its products are available in depot and instore, to help drive growth for customers.
Surf goes Coconuts
In a fragrance first for the laundry category, Surf, the UK’s number one fragrance detergent brand from Unilever, is adding a coconut scented variant to its portfolio. Surf Coconut Bliss is a nature inspired fragrance with notes of Coconut, Vanilla, Amber and Musk. Available in powder, liquid and capsules, the new variant taps into the ongoing trend for coconut fragrances in the personal care market, which is now apparent in laundry too as more shoppers seek out refreshing scents that remind them of summer. This latest addition follows the success of Surf’s Caribbean Crush variant, launched in 2018.
Day 2 keeps clothes fresh for longer
Unilever’s new brand, Day2, is creating a whole new category in laundry based on the insight, that 40% of clothes in the washing machine are not actually dirty. These are clothes which often start on the ‘chairdrobe’ or the ‘floordrobe’ – that halfway-house in the bedroom for not-quite dirty clothes – which nearly half the population admit to having. Day2 is the solution to this daily challenge – ultimately a dry shampoo for your clothes, allowing users to refresh their garments and help get more wear in-between washes. For retailers, Day2 is the gift that keeps on giving as there is relatively low cannibalisation – it’s an add on and not a replacement, therefore helping to increase basket spend.
Seventh Generation is kinder tough
To meet the rising demand from consumers who are actively seeking products that have a reduced impact on the environment, Unilever has launched Seventh Generation, a range of laundry and household cleaning products designed to be tough on dirt but gentle on the environment.
Made with plant-derived ingredients, Seventh Generation is synthetic fragrance-free and bottled using 100% recycled and recyclable materials. The number 1 eco-friendly brand in the US, Seventh Generation reflects Unilever’s commitment in the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan to ensure all its plastic packaging is fully reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
Persil relaunches 3-in-1 capsules
The UK’s number one fabric cleaning brand, Persil, is relaunching its 3-in-1 capsules with new and improved packaging and formula. The activity will be supported with an overall marketing spend of £6million including TV, OOH, digital, PR, in-store and brand partnerships.
With capsules driving the category and demand for more convenient formats increasing, the revamped Persil 3 in 1 offering is designed to help retailers capitalise on this growing opportunity. Its new and improved fragrance technology embeds fresh scents into fabrics, releasing it gradually to provide consumers with a longer-lasting effect. The brand is also bringing its famous ‘dirt is good’ proposition to life through a series of partnerships with parkrun and the England Rugby Team, as well as supporting Outdoor Classroom Day.
ACE for Colours’ new bottle size
Responding to the ongoing trend of consumers seeking smaller packaging and less plastic use, leading stain removal brand ACE has revealed a brand-new 550 ml bottle size for its best-selling product ACE for Colours.
The resized bottle has been designed to modernise the liquid laundry category and drive down unnecessary plastic use for bulk purchases. The product will be easier to use, lighter to ship and take up less shelf space. Shirley Peet, Marketing Manager for Robinson Young, the UK’s sole distributor of ACE, comments:
“It’s imperative we seek ways to lessen our impact on the planet, which is why we have reinvented the packaging for our best-selling product, ACE for Colours. The smaller bottle is effective, compact and recyclable. It also supports many of our current stockists who are limited to shelf space with the 700ml bottle and will encourage more sales with noncustomers willing to trial the product.”
ACE stain remover has been established in the UK market for a number of years and has good distribution across the country’s major supermarkets. It is the market leader in Italy, where it was first launched over 50 years ago and is also distributed across Europe, France, Spain, Germany, Greece and Belgium.
Plenty’s new Hand Towels
Plenty, the UK’s No. 1 household towel brand, is undertaking the largest product launch in its history, with new Plenty Handy Towels. The launch drives value to the household towel category by encouraging consumers to extend usage outside the kitchen and drive shoppers to make an incremental purchase.
Plenty Handy Towels offer the same great performance as the rest of the Plenty range, but in a convenient and hygienic flow-wrap pack, designed to fit in any room in the house.
Nicola Coronado, Marketing Director at Essity, owners of Plenty, says: “Plenty consistently outperforms other household towel brands in both wet strength and absorbency Spills and messes can happen anywhere in the house, so we wanted to provide consumers with the same great performance tthey expect from Plenty, but in a convenient pack that can fit in any room.”
Plenty is also running an on-pack promotion, offering millions of guaranteed rewards such as a free 3 months Kids Pass, discounts on recipes boxes from Hello Fresh, kid’s tablets and the chance to win a trip to Florida.
Partners offering discounts on experiences and services include Hello Fresh, Forest Holidays, Kids Pass, Rakuten TV and Green Thumb Lawn Treatment and there are thousands of physical rewards to claim, such as VR headsets, kid’s tablets, Bluetooth sound bars, TV streaming devices, mini trampolines, paddling pools, baking equipment and more. Shoppers are guaranteed a reward when they purchase a Plenty rewards promotional pack.
CATEGORY COMMENT
Gemma Cleland, Vice President for Homecare at Unilever UK says: Sustainability is one of the hottest trends in laundry and household care and we anticipate this trend will continue throughout 2019 as consumers become more conscious about the effect the products they choose, and their actions are having on the world around us. Another trend is that people are spending more time at home than before, and taking more interest in household cleaning. Performance is still key and our insights tell us this is something consumers will not compromise on. On the surface cleaning front, Brands with a good reputation are more important than ever, as consumers increase their cleaning repertoire and look for surface-specific products rather than all-purpose cleaners.
With the increase in premium quality surfaces such as wood, marble and granite, consumers are looking for products that will take care of these finishes rather than simply using an allrounder. In the laundry category brands remain integral, as shoppers continue to seek out brands they know and trust to ‘get the job done’. Innovation continues to drive this category.
“The fabric solutions market is fairly flat. Consumers are bulk buying larger formats so they don’t have to repeat purchase so often. This is affecting powders and liquids, but we’ve seen significant growth in capsules as consumers look to move to more convenient formats. People’s increasingly busy lives are driving this desire to switch to a more convenient format.
Gemma Cleland says Unilever continue to see significant growth from their brands with purpose:
“Our research tells us 91% of consumers would switch to an alternative purpose-led brand if given the choice. We aim to give consumers a reason to purchase our products over and above own label, from both an emotional and practical point of view. Hence Domestos for example has been doing this for a number of years, helping people in developing countries gain access to cleaner, safer toilets. It’s not just a problem which affects developing countries – it’s also an issue in the UK, which is why we have turned our attention to closer to home with our latest Use Our Loos campaign. This initiative aims to tackle the demise of public loos and encourages businesses across Britain to let people use their lavatories. It has been a huge success, with over half of consumers saying it made them feel more positive about the brand.”
Fabric conditioners are another large part of Unilever’s laundry business. Over 51% of the range is now in concentrate form, as more shoppers are drawn to fabric conditioners which offer excellent fragrance delivery in ultra-concentrated formats. These require less than half a regular dose of other products, meaning we can fit more washes into smaller bottles, further reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to this, we’ve seen exponential growth in our Comfort Ultra Concentrated products and will continue to invest and develop in this space, to grow the category further.”
Comfort is bucking the trend, as the overall fabric enhancer market is in decline due to people not understanding the clear benefits of these products or why they should buy them in addition to their current laundry repertoire. Our main focus for 2019 will be to educate people on the fact that fabric enhancers can make clothes smoother, easier to iron, softer and fresher for longer.”
The Wholesaler’s viewpoint – Category Trends with Rayburn Trading Russell Goldman, Buying Director at Rayburn Trading in Manchester, the specialist household, toiletries and confectionery wholesaler, has been following developments in the household and laundry category:
“Retailers and wholesalers should consider that many consumers are now focusing on skin health and environmental impact when deciding on homecare products. Emerging trends towards eco-consumerism focusing on green and energy efficient products have resulted in suppliers changing how they make and advertise their wares.
“Retailers heavily rely on pricemarked packs as they show a good deal and value to shoppers. Homecare suppliers have kept this in mind when developing jumbo deal product packaging that displays an affordable price. Displaying the amount of usage a consumer will get from using the product is a clever way to appeal to customers and drive sales.
Wholesalers should stock a range of price-marked cases to offer their customers as they increase sales and support the independent retail channel.
“Consumers will be constantly on the lookout for easier ways to improve the efficiency of daily chores. Households appear to be installing more dishwashers to save time in their busy schedules. In 2017, 46% of households said they owned a dishwasher and this number has continually been rising by one per cent each year. Similarly to the laundry care market, suppliers are pushing consumers to opt for dishwasher liquid-tabs as opposed to traditional dishwasher tablets. Retailers and wholesalers should keep this in mind when planning for the future, however, it’s still important to offer the choice to customers.
“For all-purpose cleaners, consumers prefer to stick to an easyto- use product to use as they “clean on the go”. Brand loyalty is on the mind of many potential buyers within the all-purpose cleaning market, as 40% of consumers are likely to purchase cleaning products they’ve had previous experience with. That’s why it’s important for wholesalers to ensure they stock up on an array of products from well-known brand names.”
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