TWO CHAINS USE ONE-AISLE CONCEPT AS WAY TO PROMOTE VOLUME GROWTH

LISA SAXTON

MINNEAPOLIS -- The idea of a one-aisle shopping experience for baby and toddler needs was evident in two chains SN visited here last month.

In an area where Byerly's and Lunds strut their upscale stuff, SN found merchandising savvy in a store operated by Rainbow Foods, Hopkins, Minn., as well as a Cooper's Supervalu operated by J&L Enterprises, Chaska, Minn.

In the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka, Cooper's Supervalu -- a compact, 17,000-square-foot conventional store -- featured an unconventional merchandising tack: It merchandised children's over-the-counter drugs among the baby items.

Some 15 facings in the tight, 20-foot baby section featured roughly 10 stockkeeping units of products such as Children's Tylenol.

According to Tim Schindler, the store's manager, the idea is to give parents everything they'll need in one fell swoop.

"Anytime you have an opportunity to cross-merchandise, I think it's a good idea," he said.

"For a while, we had a situation where we had the baby needs in one aisle and the health and beauty care in another. But, now that everything is in the same aisle, the HBC items are selling very well," said Schindler. He added that, at one point, the store had the children's OTC in both the regular HBC section and the baby aisle, which proved too confusing for consumers.

At a nearby Rainbow unit in Minnetonka, the baby aisle featured an attractive, wooden magazine and book rack, sandwiched between an upright frozen baby-food case and infant formula and accessories.

The 6-foot rack mainly housed colorful kiddie books, but also held ancillary items such as crayons and balloons.

Steve Applebaum, Rainbow's executive vice president, said due to space restraints, the rack isn't featured in all of the chain's 28 stores, nor is it always found in the baby aisle. There are some units where it is located in the cereal aisle. The cereal aisle, like the baby aisle, is where parents shop, making these locations ideal for the book displays, Applebaum said. "We need some continuity and we need to merchandise [children's books] where it makes sense," he said.