Three Critical Tips for Increasing Your Singles Sales
1. Get more space for singles
Beer often is under-spaced in the cooler, which means it’s worth more in sales than the space it is allocated. On average, the best-performing c-stores have at least 40 percent of cooler doors dedicated to beer, with 25 percent of that space dedicated to singles. The math is straightforward: When beer is allocated more cooler space, revenue increases more than any other beverage category in the cooler.5
2. Optimize merchandising
Singles and multipacks rarely overlap, with only 3 percent of beer transactions containing both singles and multipacks in the basket5. Creating a singles destination will help the singles shopper find what he/she needs quickly. Merchandising singles together rather than dispersing them across all doors results in an 18 percent higher sales rate, on average6. It’s important to organize your cooler to help shoppers find what he/she wants quickly. For the best results, organize your singles shelves from top to bottom:
- Flavors – sweet and flavor variety, FMBs
- Indulgence – imports, crafts, ciders, super premium beers
- Refreshment – easy and familiar big brands, premium and near premium
- Value – budget beverages and malt liquor
- Thirst Quencher – Large format bottles or cans (32-ounce, 40-ounce, 42-ounce packages)
3. Simplify pricinG
Too often in c-stores, items are not clearly priced or not priced at all. This creates unnecessary confusion and frustration for shoppers, who must spend more time than they want in the store. In the end, they may end up purchasing less.
To encourage repeat trips, it’s important to make shopping at your store easy and fast. The average singles shopper will buy 1.5 singles per trip, meaning sometimes he or she will buy one single and sometimes he or she will buy two. Two-for pricing can play a key role in enticing shoppers to buy two singles every time. Even without price discounts, we’ve seen sales lifts of 5 percent to 8 percent.
To further simplify pricing for consumers, offer two-for pricing by segment vs. at the brand level. This makes it easier for the shopper to quickly understand the price and make the decision to buy two. Every time.
Data cited:
1 Global Survey Growth Strategies 2016
2 VideoMining 2016
3 MillerCoors PBM Consolidated Intercepts, 2017
4 TNS, 2014
5 Nielsen Convenience Space Audits, bi-annual audit, Oct. 24, 2015
6 Nielsen C-Store Audit, Q3 2016
About The Building with Beer Blog