Farmer Jack Emphasizes HBC
Health and beauty brands are in the spotlight at Farmer Jack Supermarkets, which has launched an HBC loyalty program.
Customers will get $10 in cash when they spend $100 on HBC products. The program joins Farmer Jack's Bonus Savings Club and Baby Bonus Savings Club, both of which offer similar savings.
"Our customers are rewarded for making their health and beauty purchases at Farmer Jack," said Dennis Eidson, Farmer Jack's president and chief executive officer.
Categories include shampoo, pain relievers, vitamins, toothpaste, foot care, hair styling, shaving needs, skin care, feminine care, deodorants, meal supplements, first aid, cold remedies and eye care.
Farmer Jack is a subsidiary of A&P, Montvale, N.J.
Dole Links Bricks With Clicks
The Dole Food Co. is rewarding shoppers who buy its Fruit Bowls with $10 to spend at one of seven on-line retailers, including Art.com, Cooking.com, KBkids.com and SunglassHut.com.
The in-pack promotion is designed to stimulate loyalty among consumers by offering them on-line spending money. Consumers who buy specially marked Fruit Bowls four-packs at supermarkets and convenience stores can find a unique code inside each package. Consumers activate the unique code by visiting www.dole.com/deals and creating an account for the promotion. Every new code gives consumers a $10 savings limit to spend at one of the participating on-line retailers.
The program was created by SoftCoin, a Web-based Promotion Service Provider, and coordinated by Flair Communications Agency.
"SoftCoin's PSP technology proved to be an excellent solution for our strategic loyalty goals," said Marty Ordman, vice president of marketing services at Dole. "SoftCoin's system allows us to offer our consumers a very powerful incentive to purchase that is actually very easy to redeem -- through our own Dole site -- at premier on-line retailers that meet our consumers' interests."
SoftCoin is providing Dole marketing managers with tools to monitor promotion performance and analytical reports. It also provides Internet customer support.
"We have empowered Dole with an incredibly simple method for executing a traditional promotion in an innovative way," said Lisa Chorebanian, Softcoin's director of business development. "The fact that it's so highly custom-tailored -- from the partners aligned to the wholly Dole branded, internalized Web experience -- makes it even more tempting and comfortable for consumers."
Study: Assortment Key For Certain Brands
Price is much less important among supermarket shoppers who switch to drug stores vs. those who switch to discount stores, according to a ShopperInsight study, conducted by Harris Interactive, a Rochester, N.Y., Internet-based market research firm.
As a result, supermarkets could benefit from placing greater emphasis on their product assortment -- particularly for highly competitive categories such as cough and cold remedies.
Among supermarket shoppers who reported purchasing a cough and cold remedy somewhere in the last six months, 30% prefer to purchase the category at their primary supermarket; 30% also opt to purchase cough and cold remedies in discount stores; 26%, drug stores; 9%, a supermarket other than their primary; and 5%, in another class of trade.
Price is the most frequent reason that supermarket shoppers switch to discount stores for cough and cold remedies. Ninety-four percent of respondents who switched to discount stores cited price as a reason for switching, compared to 29% who said selection. In comparison, shoppers who switch to drug stores to buy cough and cold remedies are half as likely to consider pricing issues (39%) as those who switch to discount stores.
