From The Fall 2004 Issue of Natural Grocery Buyer

Promote Naturals To Increase Wallet Share

Your customers may be going elsewhere for the healthy items you sell

Lisa Everitt

More consumers than ever are trying natural and organic products. How do you get them to buy these products at your store?

Shoppers we surveyed said they buy organics and naturals in the supermarket that’s most convenient or that offers the lowest prices. Often they bring their preferences from a specialty or health food store; now they’re looking for one-stop convenience or a better price on products they already buy. To gain this segment, according to survey author Sherwood Badger Smith, make sure your dedicated shoppers—who are already sold on your store’s convenience and pricing—know what you offer in naturals and organics. A well-defined product mix, along with promotions that improve naturals’ “price image,” will build wallet share and increase average spending per trip.

Nancy Hancock of Chunchula, Ala., does most of her grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, but switched her meat buying to a small local butcher when the mad cow disease scare hit. Wal-Mart only stocks case-ready meat, which she says she no longer trusts.

“If you listen to all that stuff, you won’t know what’s true or what’s safe, and you can’t stop eating,” she said.

More than 50 percent of survey respondents said they’d been influenced to buy a natural, organic or healthy product by reading a health magazine or book, or by a national news story, while 76 percent said they trusted their health practitioners’ recommendations.

Smart supermarketers help customers make health-related purchases by providing information:

• Always stock health magazines, books and cookbooks.
• Reprint national news stories about food and health for your naturals section.
• Have natural health information available in your store pharmacy.
• Build ties to local doctors and other practitioners.
• Promote health-related events in your community.
• Run sampling events and product demos often. Get people to try new products and promote them with an attractive end cap display.

That’s how a store gains wallet share. To lose it, neglect the basics. Respondents said they would drive 10 minutes out of their way to a different store if any of these things were to happen:

• Fresh products sit an extra day on the shelf.
• Three SKUs disappear from an important category.
• Average prices on natural products rise by 10 percent.
• They regularly wait more than six minutes to check out.
• One in five employees are unhelpful or unfriendly.
• One in three employees can’t answer a question about merchandise.
• It takes two or more minutes to find a staff person.

“A retail manager must cultivate the strengths that matter most,” Smith said, “while not giving consumers a reason to go away with failure in another area.”

Sidebars:
Factors That Influence Spending on Health Products
Relative Trust of Different Sources of Information