As part of our on-going project with Mars Wrigley Confectionery to optimise our sales of gum and candy, we invited the company to the store to audit our range and offer pointers on any lines we were missing – and were delighted with the results!
by Antony Begley
Gum is massively important for us at Woodlands Local as it’s one of the fastest-selling categories and one of the biggest profit drivers in the store, all from a remarkably small footprint.
We will be working with undisputed gum kings Mars Wrigley Confectionery over the coming months to attempt to ensure that we are squeezing every penny of sales and profit out of the category. We have a long and very good relationship with Mars Wrigley so we knew that we were in reasonably good shape when it came to our ranging and merchandising in-store – but we decided nonetheless to invite our local rep Sharon Wotherspoon (pictured) to Woodlands to give us marks out of 10 and highlight any areas where she felt we might be weak, or any areas where we could grow.
Sharon duly popped along to the store last month and spent over an hour checking our range line by line then going over our merchandising with a fine-tooth comb. The audit complete, Sharon gave us a “9.5 out of 10” which was great news for the team at the store. We have always impressed on the team how important it is to keep those vital gum fixtures at the till fully stocked and in great condition, so getting a formal nod of approval from Mars Wrigley was very heartening.
“The range is almost perfect and the merchandising is completely in line with best practice,” said Sharon. “Availability is absolutely spot on with plenty of spare stock and the fixtures are clean, tidy and well sited. You have all of the latest NPD and you’ve given the right amount of space to each product in line with its rate of sale, so I’d have to give you a 9.5 out of 10.”
Only a 9.5? Well, it turns out we were missing one line – Wrigley Extra Bubblemint Soft Chew – and we had one out of stock, since our wholesaler Filshill no longer offers the SKU in question.
Needless to say, we’ve subsequently added the missing line and sourced the out of stock product from a trip to Booker at Port Dundas, putting us back in 10 out of 10 territory.
Candy crush
While Sharon was in she also looked at our candy range and was similarly satisfied that we stocked the recommended range for a store of our size and location across all of Mars Wrigley’s range, including medicated sweets.
She advised that we may want to try a few more hanging bag lines from the Skittles and Starburst ranges, so we’ll report back next month on what we decide to do.
