The role of price-marked packs in local retailing has been debated time and again, so we decided to put them to the test with the help of Wrigley in a unique in-store test.
Price-marked packs. Retailers tend to either love them or hate them. Spar isn’t keen on them, Premier loves them – and it’s easy to see both sides of the debate.
Price marks restrict the margins retailers can make, particularly when buy prices rise but the price mark doesn’t. But customers love them because they deliver a promise of value and a reassurance that they are paying a fair price. So which way to go?
It’s with this in mind that Woodlands Local is currently working on a research project with Wrigley to directly compare the sales of products which are identical in every way, except for that important little price mark on the outside of the pack.
For the last month we’ve been selling a range of Wrigley sugar products – Starburst and Skittles – in the usual siting in-store and we have been monitoring sales all the while.
As of the start of August however, these packs were directly replaced with price-marked equivalents. Nothing else will change. There will be no extra facings or more premium sitings. Only the actual packs themselves will change.
Come the end of August we’ll compare and contrast and we’ll be bringing you the results, hopefully contributing our tuppence worth into the debate about the role of price-marked packs in convenience.
Tune in next month to find out what the numbers are telling us and what we have learned about the role of the price-marked pack…
