HY-VEE EXPANDS TENT SALES CHAINWIDE

Dan Alaimo

SAN DIEGO -- Hy-Vee, West Des Moines, Iowa, will run its parking lot tent sale program in all stores this summer, which should nearly double the participation rate, said Joel Wilson, general merchandise coordinator.

"Every one of our stores will have a tent sale between May and September," he told SN during the recent General Merchandise Marketing Conference here of the General Merchandise Distributors Council, Colorado Springs, Colo.

While grocery items like detergent or soft drinks may attract people to the tent sales, it's general merchandise that drives sales and profits, he noted.

Some stores have sold as much as $600,000 in merchandise at price points ranging as high as $1,498 for a television. With the expansion, Wilson expects to add about 20% to the total sales done through tent sales last year, and an overall 1% increase in sales for the chain. "Those are huge dollars, and we think that they are all incremental sales," he said.

In the face of heightened competition, the tent sales help make Hy-Vee a destination, he said. "It's always been the mass merchant or that big box down the street that would draw people to our stores, but now it's the other way around. They come to see us," Wilson said.

True to Hy-Vee's retail culture, the tent sales and the merchandise sold in them are determined by its stores, which have a high degree of autonomy, he said.