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01 Bread
Everybody eats the stuff but a vast majority of national sales go through supermarkets as part of a weekly destination shop.
However, most consumers are (fortunately) poor planners and the short shelf life of the most popular products means that they will run out sometime during the week. This is the local shop's opportunity to get those shoppers in the door.
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02 Bake Off
Bread is one category where perceived freshness has sparked a whole new sub-category.
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03 Milk
Key Points:
- It's a hugely important category
- Strong brands sell well: local brands even better
- Make sure your offer is immediately visible to the shopper wherever you have it in store
- Keep up with promotional activity
- Favour larger pack sizes
- Keep that chiller tidy!
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04 Greeting Cards
Whether it’s Just To Say I Love You, or for that Belated Happy Birthday Wish, there is a card for every occasion. The independent trade, however, needs to stick to just a few key messages. With them, and a prominent display, it can make the most of this category.
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05 Stationery
Not being stocked by many of the multiple "convenience" offerings, this category offers a useful point of differentiation for the independent.
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06 Toys
Lovely as kids are, there are times when the only way to have your way is good old fashioned bribery in the form of a "pocket money" toy from the local convenience store.
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07 Confectionery
A huge market - over £5 billion per year!
The UK market is dominated by the top three manufacturers - Cadbury Trebor; Nestle and Masterfoods (Mars) who between them account for over 80% of all UK confectionery sales.
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08 Snacks
A balanced snacking offer is vital as 53% of snacking shoppers prefer a savoury to a sweet snack.
Savoury snacks must have the right brands stocked
77% of shoppers won't buy another product to replace a failed purchase
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09 Cakes/Biscuits
- Food on the Go is where growth is
- Take home is still important
- Use your supplier's expertise to grow sales
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10 Soft Drinks
Almost everybody in the country contributes to the soft drink market and not surprisingly this category is to be found in almost every outlet in the land. It’s continually changing to reflect the desires of the consumer and with truly huge brand names eager to maintain their positions, constant innovation drives growth.
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11 Sandwiches
The sandwich has become the ultimate convenience food and a thriving manufacturing and retail industry has developed around it.
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12 Chilled
Chilled Food is a massive category and its importance is growing as a number of
trends draw people's attention to your chiller. People want to eat on the go, and perceive that they
are eating more healthily while all the time the cost of distribution is falling.
And what is more
frozen food is not the stalwart it once was and
has been losing ground to chilled for some time.
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13 Frozen Food
- Frozen Food is growing well in difficult times
- Big sellers cover a vast majority of sales
- Long shelf life and low wastage mean good profits
For some time frozen food has been the poor cousin of chilled and fresh offerings, with a dowdy, down at heel image. It is perhaps for this reason alone unsurprising that frozen is having a comparative renaissance. Where
chilled has largely stalled, frozen is up 15% over the last three years.
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14 Ice Cream
Ice Cream time is almost upon us again. Despite a year of mixed weather following the disappointing no-show of the Met Office's "barbecue Summer", our members are on course to share in another £20K plus payout to go along with the £200K of additional wholesale discounts they recieved during the year.
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15 News & Mags
The news distribution within the UK is dominated by two wholesalers.
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16 Maps & Guides
- Buy it
- Display it
- Sell it!
There are good margins to be had in this simplest of all categories.
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17 Car Care
Car Care is a vital part of the convenience mix of all service stations and it is increasingly to be found in more and more stores off the forecourt. This is a particularly seasonal category and requires two almost completely different ranges depending on the time of year.Make sure you don’t get caught out by a changing season.
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18 Batteries
The endless drive toward portable gadgets is maintaining
demand in a category with potentially great margins for retailers.
- Make sure you have AA and AAA always available (86% of sales)
- Have a range of power options to allow consumers to trade up
- Have the fixture clearly visible near the counter – impulse sales are high
- 40% of annual sales are over the festive period – make sure you don’t miss out
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19 Flowers/Plants
Prepare to watch your fresh flower sales grow! The concept of selling fresh flowers and plants is an appealing one to many retailers; they are impulse lines and are high value items which give good returns per linear foot.
They also brighten the exterior of any retail outlet.
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20 Services
In this day and age, there is so much more to running any business and retail is no different.
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21 Till Point Promotions
Once the sole domain of the forecourt, Till Point Promotions were designed to take advantage of the fact that customers were already buying fuel, by giving the opportunity to make an additional purchase at an “incredibly” low price. This enhanced the margin the retailer received on the overall transaction and gave the consumer the perception of great value for money.
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22 Electronic Point of Sale
In the great struggle to compete with the multiple, Gainsmore are complete believers that you need Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) equipment to maximise your profitability. We are not talking about all the bells and whistles that many offerings lay claim to, but there are a couple of reasons why employing a till that can tell you precise details of sales that all your well honed product knowledge cannot match.
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23 Sunglasses & Reading Glasses
Once the domain of opticians and chemists, many convenience outlets have found good margins and a ready market - particularly for sunglasses in summer.
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24 Hosiery
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25 Local Produce
According to the experts, more and more consumers want and are willing to pay more for Locally Sourced Produce.
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26 Pet Care
50% of your customers are pet owners - they are good for your business.
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27 Tobacco and Sundries
High value, lower percentage margin but good cash margins (e.g.
30p per packet of premium cigarettes), and people want this product and are prepared to
pay for it.
- More than 7 million packets of cigarettes are smoked every day.
- Nearly 13 million adult Britons smoke – that is nearly a third of everyone over the age of 16.
- Tobacco outsells confectionery, soft drinks and newspapers combined.
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28 Video & Leisure
Rental demand is under pressure from the internet and high street multiples, but
there is still space in the market for the right offer from the independent
sector.
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29 Wholesale - Ambient
Whether it be delivered to your store or you go and pick it up at the Cash &
Carry there are significant benefits to developing a good relationship with an a
quality ambient wholesaler. However, when choosing your partner, insist
on:
- Wide enough Range
- High Availability
- Strong Promotional Programme
- Reward for Loyalty
- Good Advice
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30 Our associate supply partners
This area of our site is devoted to manufacturers and suppliers whose products might not necessarily be directly available through the buying group programme – but who nevertheless recognize the important role that today’s independent retailer plays in placing their products before the buying public.
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31 Trade Press
Even when there is the on-line world to get your information from, many of us still like to read stuff in the traditional way
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32 Gifts
Very often this category is useful as a complement to your Greetings Cards / Stationery offering - and at great margins too!
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33 Sundry Goods
Here we feature suppliers of some of the "more difficult to categorise" products. In other words we don't know where else to put them!
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34 Our Charities
There are a number of charities that do good works for various people who have worked in different parts of our industry who have fallen on hard times.
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ZZ Test Category
This is a dummy category for system testing purposes only.
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