REPOSITIONING

David Merrefield

Clever marketers are almost always engaged in the pursuit of ways to reposition their offerings in a bid to cater to new customers, or to follow shifting customer demand. As is often the case, this week's SN has several examples of retailers in action on the repositioning front.

To cite one, Boston Market has started a nationwide television-advertising campaign intended to point out that a number of "low-fat" menu items are offered (Page 17). This is a telling repositioning because, for a long time, Boston Market had the image of offering a healthy menu selection. Boston Market enjoyed that image despite the fact that high-fat items composed substantial portions of its menu. This campaign seeks to regain that ground for the troubled retailer.

Another example: Kmart is standing retailers' usual fear about Internet selling on its head by installing self-service personal computer stations in a number of Detroit-area stores from which customers can place orders for a wide variety of merchandise (Page 13). Other retailers, including membership clubs, are doing something similar. Conversely, on Page 17 there is a news article about a food retailer's offer of fresh-prepared items through the Internet.

And, as the reference box on Page 1 shows, as the population of the nation becomes more diversified, it's necessary to constantly look at products to make sure that what's being offered is what a diverse shopper base wants.

More broadly, the industry is involved in the Fight Bac! campaign, which seeks to reposition a portion of the responsibility for safe food-handling practices toward the consumer and away from a total reliance on retailer and vendor. Specifics on what a few retailers, among many, are doing are on Page 23.

But perhaps the biggest repositioning effort now under way involves the move of specialty retailers into mainstream marketing, and of mainstream stores into specialty marketing. Those moves are pointed out on Page 31, which contains news articles about Whole Foods Market's offer of a coupon book and, separately, a study that shows that specialty-food shoppers are likely to be loyal and high-spending shoppers.

The latter point is shown by means of a study conducted by Willard Bishop Consulting that was issued at the National Food Distributors Association's annual convention. The study shows that "better customers," those who spend the most money in the store, tend to drive about half of all specialty-product sales. Also, 20% of specialty sales come from "secondary shoppers," those who come into the store specifically to look for specialty items.

Specialty-product purchasers tend to be loyal to the specialty category and to make multiple purchases from any given category. Indeed, although this is the exception, some shoppers will purchase only specialty products in certain categories. The best example of that, as mentioned in the study, was olive oil. Most shoppers, though, buy both traditional and specialty items in any given category.

Also, the study shows that specialty foods can have a favorable economic effect since such products are typically sold at full retail price point.

The point of all this is that some repositioning efforts have the potential to make a big difference to the bottom line.

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