Dollar Sales $2,525,076,000 % Change From Last Year -3.48
have softened as customers increasingly head to other formats for detergent and other household staples. Dollar stores are cleaning up on sales, slashing prices on detergent to combat mass merchandisers. Drug stores also have benefited from being convenience stops. While shoppers have shown a willingness to pay more for top brands, private-label brands are gaining ground.
Sales for the combined food, drug and mass merchandiser channel dropped nearly 3.5% for the 52 weeks ending June 13. This mirrors the supermarket channel specifically, which dropped an identical amount on sales of $2.5 billion. The downward sales trend is also apparent in calendar year 2003, when supermarket sales declined 2.9% to nearly $2.6 billion, and in calendar year 2002, when category sales dropped 6.8% to $2.7 billion.
Drug stores appear to have picked up some of what supermarkets lost. For the 52 weeks ending June 13, sales were up just over 1%, to $269 million. Calendar year 2003 saw a 1.1% increase on sales of $268 million, and a 12% increase in 2002, on sales of $265 million.
Liquid has become the clear favorite over powder detergent, while newly introduced detergent tablets have failed to catch on. In supermarkets, liquid accounts for more than 70% of dollar sales in the category. Despite a slight increase in dollar sales of liquid in that channel, double-digit declines in all other segments (including a nearly 63% falloff in tablet sales) shrunk total sales in the category by nearly 3.5%.
Subcategories: 52-week sales; % change
LIQUID LAUNDRY DETERGENT: $1,774,822,000; 1.28
POWDER LAUNDRY DETERGENT: $712,398,100; -10.21
OTHER LAUNDRY DETERGENT (PACKET/BAR): $22,229,010; -22.19
TABLET LAUNDRY DETERGENT: $15,627,600; -62.51
Latest 52 weeks ending June 13, 2004.
Dollar Sales Latest 52 Weeks Ended June 13, 2004; % Change; Dollar Sales Calendar Year Ended Dec. 28, 2003; % Change; Dollar Sales Calendar Year Ended Dec. 29, 2002; % Change
