As shoppers continue to minimise the number of shopping trips and look for the best ways to stay safe, the UK’s leading distributor, DCS Group, has provided its wholesale and retailer customer base with the latest data to keep shoppers visiting local stores.
To support the continued growth of independent and symbol store sales, DCS Group ran the second in its series of ‘Destination Convenience’ sales webinars on Thursday 2 July with the focus on the Household and Laundry category.
The distributor highlighted the opportunities available to buyers from wholesale and convenience and offered advice on how to keep shoppers loyal as lockdown restrictions ease.
“The main focus of our webinars is to help our wholesale and retailer customer base by providing them with market leading shopper advice and to assist them in finding ways to keep their shoppers visiting stores time and time again. The household and laundry category is very important at the moment as the cleaning and antibacterial trend is here to stay,” said Clare Bocking, Chief Commercial Officer of DCS Group.
“By focusing on the unique benefits of the category and providing our customer base with the knowledge they need to keep basket-spend high, we know this approach will keep shoppers visiting local convenience stores.
“Our research shows that the cleaning activity in homes is going to continue to grow. If we focus on providing a good range of these products in a visible place in-store, it will reassure shoppers that convenience stores are putting health and safety first and will keep shoppers coming time and time again.
“To become a destination store, convenience retailers need to offer shoppers more than just a top-up shop. They need to take a core and more approach to their product range which means offering higher value and volume sku’s in this category.
During the ‘Destination Convenience’ webinar DCS provided tailored shopper advice for the household and laundry category. This included:
- Specialist cleaning products – often higher value products, including limescale remover, drain unblocker and oven cleaner (eg Mr Muscle Drain Cleaner)
- An antibacterial bay brings together all the relevant products and encourages customers to cross-shop (eg Dettol all in one spray and Fairy antibacterial washing up liquid)
- Air care: Whilst aerosols are in good supply in convenience, the biggest segments in total market are candles and electrical plug-ins, which are massively underrepresented in the convenience channel (eg Glade, and Febreeze Air Mist)
- Dishwashing: A key opportunity lies with antibacterial washing up liquid and premium dishwasher tabs (eg Fairy Platinum and Finish Quantum)
- Laundry & fabric conditioner: Scope to encourage sales of premium up-sells (eg laundry beads Lenor Unstoppables and premium tier fabric conditioners such as Comfort Intense which can be price-marked). Larger pack laundry detergents are also key to providing shoppers with good value.
‘Destination Convenience’ consists of two half-hour channel insight briefings, followed by direct conversations between customers and account managers. The distributor ran its first webinar on 21 May, focusing on the personal care category.
Bocking added: “The webinars equip our customers with the tools and information they need to drive sales in wholesale depots and convenience stores. The results and feedback from our first webinar were fantastic which resulted in hundreds of new listings and more buyers taking part in our household and laundry webinar. This success has led us to planning more bespoke category webinars and the next one will take place on 22 July with the focus on the baby category.”
DCS offers impartial category and ranging advice for wholesalers, convenience retailers, discounters, high street retailers, and foodservice and pharmacy distributors.
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