Skip navigation

THE READ ON HEALTH

The prognosis for health magazine sales looks very good.But achieving the full potential of this category segment in supermarkets will require more and better merchandising, according to retailer panelists at a recent workshop.While the retailers acknowledged the strong potential for sales and image-building inherent in carrying health magazines, some complained that a lack of display initiative by

The prognosis for health magazine sales looks very good.

But achieving the full potential of this category segment in supermarkets will require more and better merchandising, according to retailer panelists at a recent workshop.

While the retailers acknowledged the strong potential for sales and image-building inherent in carrying health magazines, some complained that a lack of display initiative by distributors is hindering the segment's growth. Replenishment also is a challenge, the retailers said.

"Outposting would get a big boost if magazine distributors came up with more ideas," said Bill Mansfield, vice president of general merchandise, Marsh Supermarkets, Indianapolis. Permanent fixtures are the key to outposting, and retailers need help from their suppliers in promoting it. "You can't just put up a rack on the floor in produce and expect that it's going to stay, because the first or second time the manager walks by, it's going to have a new home in the backroom."

Some retailers complained about out-of-stocks. "When the pockets emptied out, all of sudden there was nothing there -- we didn't get proper follow-through on replenishing the inventory," said Wayne Gresl, director of nonfoods, Copps Corp., Stevens Point, Wis.

But some have a very different experience. "I think I have the best wholesaler in the world," said Bonnie Quick, director of general merchandise, G&R Felpausch, Hastings, Mich. "They come to me with all kinds of opportunities, cross merchandising, everything. They furnish the fixtures and they maintain them. If we make a phone call that we need something, if they have to get in their car and make a special trip, they will."

The retailers gathered earlier this year for a roundtable workshop held in tandem with the General Merchandise Distributors Council's General Merchandise Marketing Conference in Palm Desert, Calif. The conversation explored how to integrate health related magazines with the whole health initiative co-sponsored by the Food Marketing Institute, Washington, DC, and GMDC, Colorado Springs, Colo. The initiative focuses on the consumer's interest in health, fitness and nutrition and has offered programs tying in the entire store to better serve its customers.

Panelists were: Wayne Gresl, director of nonfoods, Copps Corp., Stevens Point, Wis.; Bonnie Quick, director of general merchandise, G&R Felpausch, Hastings, Mich.; John Stahl, director of nonfoods, Genuardi's Family Markets, Norristown, Penn.; David Wesloh, vice president, general merchandise/health and beauty care, Jitney Jungle, Jackson, Miss., and Bill Mansfield, vice president of general merchandise, Marsh Supermarkets, Indianapolis. Also attending were Roy White, vice president/education for GMDC and four executives from Rodale Press: Richard Alleger, vice president, magazine division; Michael Gillen, corporate director, retail sales; Edwin Slaughter, director of market research, and Diederik Terlaak Poot, national marketing director.

Sponsored by Rodale Press, Emmaus, Penn., the roundtable was organized by Snyder Consulting, Mamaroneck, N.Y. Glenn Snyder, president, was the moderator. Supermarket News was the exclusive media host of the event.

The roundtable discussion took many turns -- from discussing how deep the whole-health initiative has penetrated to cross merchandising and the ability of magazine distributors to fulfill increased retailer expectations. Here are selected, edited excerpts:

SN: Health oriented magazines are perfect connectors with the whole-health initiative, which aims at providing solutions for the increased interest by customers in more self-reliance in health, wellness and nutrition. Our mission today is to discuss how to capitalize on this connection through better merchandising and operations. Let's begin with a comment from Roy White. He's GMDC's vice president for education and has played a prominent role in building the whole-health program.

WHITE: Whole health is a major initiative for GMDC. I'm sure you are well aware of our presentations and booklets on the topic and we have produced a continuing education program for pharmacists. One of the main points in our best practices booklet is the importance of educating the consumer. The key to the whole-health movement is that customers be educated on nutritional and health topics and be well aware of what's available for purchase in the supermarket that will help them maintain their health and well being. It's our feeling that magazines can play a much more central role in all this.

SN: Actually, whole health presents an opportunity for nonfoods in a broader sense than individual product categories. By tying in, fostering the concept and execution, nonfoods is improving its own health by strengthening its ties with the "whole" store and helping to eradicate forever the remnants of the old "orphan" status that's still found here and there. Our first question for the panelists: Is your top management aware of the whole-health concept?

QUICK: Oh, yes. It all starts with produce where it has taken big strides. This includes a strong interest in organics. We have not made a total commitment to that because of the quality, or really the lack of it, and insufficient abundance of product. We have worked cross merchandising into different areas where it lends itself to whole health and where synergies apply.

STAHL: We are probably the top guns among supermarkets in our area as far as organics go. Our top management has attended a Whole Health Conference at St. Joseph's University. Our CEO has talked a lot about whole health and he wants the company to take a leadership role because we do many things in our stores that point in this direction. But we don't tie the whole thing together -- at least not yet. We make sure that we have those items available in every department, whether they be organic or whether it's low-fat meats and Australian meats.

WESLOH: Our executives certainly know about the concept. As far as implementing it in the deep south, it's a tougher sell. People really don't avoid butter, fatty foods, fried chicken and the like. We do some things within our stores such as stocking low fat meat and leaner cuts of beef and things like that, but as far as a total store concept, we are probably pretty far away.

GRESL: Our top management embraces whole health, and we as a group of merchandisers have been beating the drum for six to eight months already. We formed an inner group to look at this and we're trying to come out with signage packages and shelf labeling that tie the entire store together -- in meats, produce, grocery, nonfoods and into our natural food department and pharmacy.

Years ago we used to have a Nutriguide program in our stores which somewhat followed the characteristics of whole health. That's no longer available. So we went to Michigan University and looked at their program, which includes a complete shelf labeling guide, books and other materials to help the customer shop health. So we are going to model a program after that and bring the whole store together.

SN: Are nonfoods executives an active participant on this store team? Nonfoods is often left out of these kinds of meetings or has little to say.

GRESL: You're right, that has often been the case. But I'm actively involved because I feel the initiative stemmed from GMDC and FMI. When GMDC got us to the table with the program -- and I believe in GMDC -- I felt nonfoods deserved to participate because it was a primary mover. I should add that in nonfoods, GM is not affected very much; HBC with the vitamins section and pharmacy is the centerpiece.

SN: HBC, right. But GM, too, if you consider magazines. Bonnie (Quick), have you found that the whole-health program has helped you establish stronger ties with top management?

QUICK: Oh, yes. We have had a lot of discussions on it, especially about vitamins and nutritionals and we plan to do more.

WESLOH: Nonfoods has been able to make headway in cross merchandising in meats, produce and all the perishables when it's appropriate. Even though we are not totally executing whole health concepts, I expect that this kind of cooperation does help. We're working on it. Still, we don't have health oriented magazines at the checkouts. On the other hand, we have definitely increased space for magazines, including health titles, in the mainline. We did this by cutting back on paperbacks.

QUICK: We have two health titles up front.

STAHL: I'd say we have three or four titles at the check stands. We have increased mainline space for magazines and books overall. We used to put in 12 to 16 feet and now we install 28 feet.

SN: Let's talk about cross merchandising or outposting of health magazines. Here's where flexibility and creativity can make a difference.

GRESL: We have low profile sections in some of our stores for natural food departments and there we have health magazines and books. But these aren't outposts that duplicate titles; that's the only location.

QUICK: We are working on a wellness center right now, but we are not sure if it will include magazines. We looking for information on that. We do have outposts of magazines in produce and pharmacy, but they deal with lifestyles, such a as cooking and food preparation, more than with health, at least so far. Every once in awhile I write a report on what the fixtures are generating in dollars and placements. They've worked well.

SN: Was it difficult securing these outpost placements? Department managers tend not to want to provide space for products they don't get sales credit for. Sometimes it takes a lot of pressure.

QUICK: We didn't have to go to extremes. It was all agreed upon at store level where this outposting would take place. It's a kind of partnership with us.

STAHL: If everything stuck that we instituted, I probably wouldn't have to work anymore. But we do some outposting. In some of our formats we have produce across from the food court and we put in a publisher fixture like Wegmans is using which displays a gourmet-type magazine and also has shelves for tie-in ingredients for some of the recipes. Now this is an idea that has stuck; the directors of food courts and produce were fine with it. They thought it was great, so it stayed.

We've also done outposting in meat and floral where we placed "Martha Stewart's Living," and we have done "Eating Well" in the regular produce sections on pedestals and single and double pockets. But the fixtures don't last. Why? It's a combination of things. First, the department manager isn't sold on it; it's not a head of lettuce so it shouldn't be there. Second, there's a lack of discipline by the magazine suppliers who don't complain when the fixture has disappeared. We are pretty successful with magazine outposts with disposable diapers where we have increased sales of two titles, "Child" and "Parents," maybe 200% or 300% or more.

MANSFIELD: We have outposts in the produce and gourmet foods departments. These are permanent fixtures. That's the key to outposting. You can't just put up a rack on the floor in produce and expect that it's going to stay, because the first or second time the manager walks by, it's going to have a new home in the backroom. But if you have something that's bolted down and can't be moved, you have a very good chance of keeping it there.

Outposting would get a big boost if magazine distributors came up with more ideas. Most of what we've done is from my initiative. I'll say "I want such and such," and the distributor will follow through. STAHL: When we put in the 28-foot vitamin sections, we asked our magazine distributor to bring us a fixture for related magazines. He didn't seem to get it. He asked whether it was for four feet or eight, where should it go and so on. Then he bought little holders to display "Prevention" and "Men's Health" and titles like that, but it wasn't very professional looking to say the least. I thought plans for this kind of thing would have been in his back pocket.

MANSFIELD: Every store we have is different. The positioning and size of the fixtures are different so it is a little difficult to come up with a consistent fixture, but a slat-wall and clear plastic pockets will work as good as anything for any size and space that you might have. It is not terrifically expensive, it's very flexible. We have several outposts for health type magazines.

But rather than wait for somebody else to come up with a good fixture that suits your stores, I think it's often better to develop your own. Tell them (publishers, distributors) what it cost, what they owe and put it in.

SN: They should pay you a consultant's fee. Are sales from outposts significant to the store in terms of dollars? Does management view outposts and cross-merchandising more as an image thing as a sales and profit booster?

MANSFIELD: There is definitely some incremental business here. However, I think we sometimes shoot ourselves in the foot when the publications have ads or articles about products we don't stock -- so we're helping to send our customer down the street to GNC to make the purchase.

GRESL: We found the same problem, that when the pockets emptied out, all of sudden there was nothing there -- we didn't get proper follow-through on replenishing the inventory. It was like a one-time shot here and there, perhaps in several places in the store and then they just disappeared. The distributor didn't keep the shelves full.

WESLOH: Our distributor is ready to get anything done that I want them to. I do believe they lack creativity, but they are coming up with some ideas. On follow-through, they're very good at that.

SN: What do our publisher friends have to say about this?

ALLEGER: As a publisher focused on wellness, we are trying hard to provide a variety of whole-health merchandising ideas for different kinds of stores and department locations -- power wings, pedestal units, freestanding fixtures, wire, wood, etc. We are looking at anything that will stimulate customer interest, customer education and sales.

GILLEN: We all have a role to play to avoid a disconnect and to build a partnership. Some retailers are strong enough to ensure that distributors' implementation is done right; they keep on top of the situation. Other retailers don't necessarily have the time or staff to do this. Publishers and national distributors can help monitor the store situation in addition to getting the whole health word out to wholesalers.