HAGGEN MOVES WINE WITH ONE-DAY SALES

RICHARD TURCSIK

BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- One-day sales usually do wonders for moving inventory in department stores, but Haggen here has found that they also can help stir wine volume.

The company ran a one-day, 12-hour wine sale, in which shoppers could receive 5% off their total wine purchase when they mixed and matched any three bottles, 10% when they mixed and matched any six bottles, and 15% off when they mixed and matched any 12 bottles. Sale and red-tag items were excluded from the promotion.

The promotion ran at Haggen's Tops Food & Drug chain. Officials at Haggen declined comment, but an industry observer familiar with the chain told SN that Haggen runs the sales periodically to help drive volume.

"The 12-hour wine sales are run quite frequently, but at different intervals. Sometimes it is every 60 days, sometimes 90, sometimes 30 days. It depends on the time of the year and what is happening," the source said, adding the ads always tie in with a big meat sale. In the most recent sale, New York Strip steaks that regularly retail for $7.99 a pound were being sold at $3.99 a pound, and boneless and skinless chicken breasts were only 98 cents a pound.

"A lot of people go to Tops to stock up on their wines and meats," the observer said, "and Tops lets the customers preorder the wine items so they can buy them during the sale."

"What the wine sale does do is give people access to a wide range of items that normally are not discountable. You get into things like Modavi Reserves -- people don't normally run ads on those. It is just like having a customized ad for the customer, instead of the traditional Gallo that is on sale every week," the observer said.