Retailers are preparing to apply "seasonal best practices" guidelines to upcoming Easter, spring-cleaning and lawn and garden promotions.
General merchandise category managers and buyers who attended the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based General Merchandise Distributors Council's fall marketing conference last month said they were quickly embracing recommendations outlined in the "seasonal best practices" study presented at the conference in Palm Desert, Calif.
Several retailers contacted by SN said implementing materials and a "how-to" manual issued to attendees will ensure more successful seasonal general merchandise programs that compete against the mass merchandisers, drug chains and discount stores.
To Ray Martin, nonfood category manager at Randalls Food Markets, Houston, the "seasonal best practices" handbook is an ideal tool for convincing top management about the importance of projecting markdowns in seasonal promotional programs."
"Top management needs to know up front what needs to be planned in advance," said Martin, who plans to apply guidelines contained in the handbook to Randalls' next seasonal lawn and garden promotions.
"It will allow us to be more aggressive with seasonal products without the fear of leftovers," said Ron Turner, vice president of nonfood at Richfood, Mechanicsville, Va. "Discounters understand this and do well," he added.
Here's what general merchandise executives said further about the manual:
Roger Hartley
director, grocery and pharmacy merchandising
Kessel Food Markets
Flint, Mich.
Because our Christmas promotion plans are complete, the earliest we would implement some of the things in the manual are next year. The biggest thing with seasonal promotions is that no one has enough room to do everything. You must prioritize what you can do, and then make a large enough impression with it.
Ray Martin
nonfood category manager
Randalls Food Markets
Houston
What [the study] tries to do is get top management to realize that you need to project a markdown in your seasonal promotional program. This is good logic.
Seasonal promotions use different disciplines. Products are planned to sell totally down with movement different from normal product turns.
Rich Channell
merchandise manager, general merchandise and HBC
Riser Foods
Bedford Heights, Ohio
We'll be implementing some of the "seasonal best practices" guidelines for our spring and summer program. We already have a built-in markdown plan for most major seasons, except for back-to-school for which no additional markdowns are taken. Excess products are carried over and promoted at a later time.
What it does is force you to lay out the whole program in advance to bring all store-level, merchandising and operations people into the loop so that there are no questions.
Ron Turner
VP, nonfood
Richfood
Mechanicsville, Va.
Retailers can embrace the importance of seasonal markdowns knowing it's part of the merchandising process. There are many on the retail and wholesaler sides of the supermarket industry that feel markdowns aren't a part of that merchandising technique. For some time they felt they weren't in the markdown business, and whatever didn't sell they sent the rest back. But now that we're in the arena of non-guaranteed sales, the retailer and wholesaler together must play a big part in this markdown strategy.
Mike Sleeper
president
Imperial Distributors
Auburn, Mass.
I was very impressed with the presentation and content from the merchandising side of the business. It creates a discipline and benchmark that will be very helpful in the planning process of seasonal promotions.
Brian Duff
manager, general merchandise and HBC
Associated Food Stores
Salt Lake City
From the wholesale and independent retailer perspectives it brings an awareness of the value of seasonal, and the profit and sales potential. Grocery operators too often marry their seasonal general merchandise rather than taking markdowns to make room for the next promotion.
Galen Itami
manager, HBC and general merchandise
United Grocers
Portland, Ore.
Easter will be the first seasonal promotion for incorporating parts of the study. It will make us all step back and scrutinize our programs as a whole.
