October 19, 2007
Supermarkets Look to Book New Business
It’s long been said that to sell anything in retailing, you have to get it on the shelf. Now, as a Supermarket News report points out, it appears that if your are truly interested in selling books in grocery, you need to get them off the shelf and put them on displays where customers can see and buy them.
According to the SN report, grocers’ experience with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last summer demonstrated the value of prominent placement and promotions to drive book category performance.
Bryon Roberts, vice president and general manager of nonperishables at Basha’s, told the trade publication, “Since we carry paperback and some hardcover new releases, books are more of an impulse buy in our stores. For that reason, we do try to keep our books near the checkstands, but the location of books in our stores varies widely depending on the design of the store.”
The special events that grocers held around the last Harry Potter release, while successful, remain the exception rather than the rule in supermarkets.
Jim Wisner, president, Wisner Marketing Group, told SN that the grocery channel has more opportunities than it realizes when it comes to book selling. Not all events will be Harry Potter but that doesn’t mean that stores can’t be successful.
“Supermarkets get regular exposure to their customers, because people are always buying food – but have to make a conscious effort to go to a book store. With big releases, supermarkets have the opportunity to preempt customers from going elsewhere,” he said.
Frank Dell, president and chief executive officer of Dellmart & Co. and a RetailWire BrainTrust member, sees opportunities for supermarkets to specialize in publications complementary to the products they sell – specifically, books focused on health, wellness and food/nutrition.
“In this case, the future means recognizing that there is a whole generation out there that doesn’t yet know how to cook,” Mr. Dell said. “Why shouldn’t supermarkets teach them about nutrition and cooking through books?”
Discussion Questions: Do you think there is learning from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows experience that supermarkets can apply to day-to-day management of the book category? What do you see as the proper role of the book category in a grocery store environment?
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Passive retailers expect shoppers to find whatever they will buy. Active retailers take note of where the shoppers are in the store and offer enticing merchandise again and again during the course of the shoppers trip. (Never stop selling!) But of course this requires at least on on passable knowledge of just what the shoppers’ trips are, in the aggregate.
The big supermarket book sales opportunity: remainders and hurts. These are books that wholesale for 10 cents to $2 each and can be retailed for fifty cents to $6.99. They’re leftovers from last year and returns from book stores. The perceived value to the shopper is terrific (a $25 list price hard cover book for $4.98) and the margins to the supermarket can be 40% to 80% of the discounted price. When the assortment is right, the turn will be 20+ times annually. The topics can be anything: fiction, history, art, self-help, show biz biographies, etc. The majority of supermarket shoppers are women and so are the majority of book buyers in book stores.
I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Dell that the opportunity lies primarily in food, cooking, health-related books but I think there is also an opportunity, based on the Harry Pottery experience, to encourage children to read by stocking books that will attract them. Bestsellers may be impulse buys but there is more room to promote and cross-sell other subjects.
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Passive retailers expect shoppers to find whatever they will buy. Active retailers take note of where the shoppers are in the store and offer enticing merchandise again and again during the course of the shoppers trip. (Never stop selling!) But of course this requires at least on on passable knowledge of just what the shoppers’ trips are, in the aggregate.
The big supermarket book sales opportunity: remainders and hurts. These are books that wholesale for 10 cents to $2 each and can be retailed for fifty cents to $6.99. They’re leftovers from last year and returns from book stores. The perceived value to the shopper is terrific (a $25 list price hard cover book for $4.98) and the margins to the supermarket can be 40% to 80% of the discounted price. When the assortment is right, the turn will be 20+ times annually. The topics can be anything: fiction, history, art, self-help, show biz biographies, etc. The majority of supermarket shoppers are women and so are the majority of book buyers in book stores.
I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Dell that the opportunity lies primarily in food, cooking, health-related books but I think there is also an opportunity, based on the Harry Pottery experience, to encourage children to read by stocking books that will attract them. Bestsellers may be impulse buys but there is more room to promote and cross-sell other subjects.