Opinion: Al Overton

Al Overton writes about ‘selling what you stand for’ and tackles the often challenging category of snacking to illustrate how retailers can both demonstrate their values to customers through their snack range, and influence their purchasing choices.

I’m going to make some assumptions about you. I’m going to assume you care about the health of your customers, the impact the products you sell have on their wellbeing and on that of future generations. I assume your range selection is as much about what you believe people should buy, as what you think they want to buy.  

I assume, basically, that there are some standards behind the SKUs that you stock, but that these are not well understood by your customers and that if they were, it would build customer loyalty, give you more points of difference against competitors and ultimately increase sales.

I’m also assuming you have no idea how to communicate values to customers, you don’t have a marketing agency on hand to do it for you and that there are some areas in-store where you’re not even sure what your guiding principles should be.

Finally, I assume that one of those challenging categories is snacking, where you’re unsure what you should sell, and you may even feel guilty for selling snack foods in the first place.

How am I doing so far?

The good news: you don’t need a branding agency, customers don’t read signs anyway and you can communicate values, increase reasons to visit your store and engage customers with what they should be buying all through the power of clear merchandising and range structure.

Why bring up snacking, when you’d rather not talk about it? Two reasons: it’s a complex category with many competing claims and benefits; and because doing a better job of it is almost certainly a sales growth opportunity.

So how do we communicate with customers and influence what they buy? The first step is to know what you want to say. What are your guiding principles? What should your customers buy? Why, in essence, do you run a health food shop?

As a starting point, list the key areas of importance to you and your team; stick it in your staff room/stock room/toilet. It could be fair trade, local provenance, wholegrain, low-sugar, natural ingredients, organic, supporting women, positive environmental impact. Always focus on what you do, not what you don’t do. So ‘only natural sweeteners’ rather than ‘no artificial sweeteners’. Don’t run a store focusing on what isn’t in it.

Next, be clear on your key differentiator in each major category. What do you want your pasta section to say? Or your coffee selection? What can your snacking shelves say about your store? I would keep it simple and argue that a good snack section says three things. Firstly, that your products are enticing and delicious. Secondly, that you’re good on nutrition, on balancing macro nutrient levels across protein and sugar, and that you care about your customers’ nutritional intake. And thirdly, that you’re fun. 

Once you know what you want each key category to say, make sure they’re clearly merchandised so it’s obvious that this is an area you’re good at and care about. Give your new snacking fixture dedicated space, with clear differentiation by shelf of the different sub-categories. Then find brands that boldly shout about what you want to say.

Championing your hero brands is the key communication tool in telling customers what’s important to you, and so what should be important to them. You are an emporium of different brands, and the curation of your product range says more about you than any other aspect of your store. By choosing bold brands that shout about a point of difference and giving them eye-level, full-shelf exposure you can tell your customers that your pasta section is about local foods, or about alternative wholegrains. You can tell me that your rice cakes are preventing deforestation, your coffee is supporting women farmers, and your snacks are delicious, nutritionally balanced and fun.

Champion brands should be carefully selected — they should be good sellers to deserve the shelf space, but they don’t have to be bestsellers. Partly they earn their keep by talking about your store and its point of difference. They’re likely to be specialists in their space, rather than broad commodity brands, and they should not be widely available in competitors — stocking the same well-known ‘slavery-free’ chocolate as your local supermarket does not say anything about your store. You should have one champion brand in each key product category, and they need to be affordable, if slightly aspirational.

So, what does all this mean for snacks? It means clearly splitting your snack range by category or occasion to make it easy to shop. It means picking bold brands that shout about what is important to you in your snacking range and encouraging customers to make better decisions. And then proudly displaying that range, knowing that you’re giving customers healthier and better products, gaining incremental sales and making your store more relevant to a younger demographic.

By Al Overton, Wonderland Ventures