Sell sweets with a smile

We might all know that offering good customer service is a step in the right direction to a successful confectionery retail business, but it is always useful to find some factual reasoning behind this, especially when the UK high street is struggling to find its way. 

YouGov has recently undertaken a consumer poll to understand what brightens someone’s day – all the more important when the weather is so damp and dismal. Most of the key things that the poll highlighted don’t cost a penny and we think that bricks and mortar UK confectionery retailers can really excel in “day brightening” given that confectionery is generally a fun purchase. 

The top way to help someone’s day go well is to give them a nice big smile. What’s more, a smile is a two way thing as you tend to get a smile back and that brightens your own day too! High up on the list is to say “Good morning” – another simple winner. Other relevant key day brighteners include:

·         Offering a compliment

·         Giving them time to chat

·         Holding the door open for them

·         Listening 

These can all be implemented in a confectionery retail environment at NO cost whatsoever. The simple commercial logic is that if you can brighten someone’s day a little, they will enjoy coming into your shop, might buy more sweets and are more likely to come back and tell their friends - all helping you to sell more sweets. 

It really might seem obvious to many, but given some of the poor personal service and interaction I have received from many retailers in recent times, there is certainly no harm in stating the obvious when the opportunity arises! A high level of customer service will have a positive impact on your sales and comes at little or no cost to your business. 

What the YouGov research did underline is that not every simple action can be replicated in a retail environment. I don’t know many sweet shops that give you a hug, make you a cup of tea and buy you flowers whilst you decide what treats you decide to indulge in. 

So don’t let the weather get your confectionery sales down and focus on bringing the sun back into your customers’ days. 

For lots more talk about UK confectionery retailing visit our website at www.sweetretailing.co.uk 

Visit YouGov at www.yougov.co.uk

Discounted Thorntons chocolate

It is such a shame that Thorntons chocolate shops are still struggling, reporting a 2.7% drop in third quarter sales this week. And now the news that the UK chocolate manufacturer and retailer intends to turn a good number of its more troubled stores into factory outlets, selling off end of lines, shorted dated stock and over stocks at a typical discount of 50% (The Grocer 5 May 2012). 

When the UK confectionery market is generally demonstrating a positive course, it is sad to see such an established British chocolate icon struggle to take itself forward at the moment. Stock has a cost and as such it might be a wise move to develop a factory shop style outlet in order to facilitate its clearance, but I cannot help thinking that this will do little to help Thornton’s image. 

Long known as a specialist and most delicious British chocolate brand, will the existence of chocolate factory outlets diminish this image and develop Thorntons into yet another discount brand? I do hope not. On the other side of the coin, many quality clothing brands manage to balance full priced stores with factory outlet stores, poised to sell off their excess and less popular stock. 

From a financial point of view, it has to be good business sense to develop a route to market for sub standard and excess stock, freeing up the asset to become additional cash flow. From a brand perspective, it will be very interesting to see where Thorntons is to go next.

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Now on Facebook

Sweet Retailing has tentatively embraced the dizzy world of Facebook at long last! Our shiny new Facebook page will keep you up to date on new stories, products and advice in addition to offering you snippets that cannot be found on the website. And of course it gives you the perfect opportunity to get involved in the discussion as you see fit.

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Chocolate printers on ebay

There has been much enthusiastic discussion about the unveiling of a commercial 3D chocolate printer and so we thought that we would do our bit and bring you the facts in case this is an opportunity for your own UK chocolate business.
 

The UK company that has developed the world’s first commercial 3D chocolate printer is called Choc Edge Ltd. Led by Dr Liang Hao, this new company based in Exeter has now made Choc Creator version 1 available for sale at a standard price of £2,888. 

The 3D printer uses melted chocolate to build up a bespoke 3D chocolate shape in layers. YouTube videos are already in circulation! 

To mark the launch of the new 3D chocolate printer, Choc Edge is apparently auctioning 10 printers on ebay, starting today. 

This is clearly a creative opportunity for chocolate companies and organisations that use chocolate in some way, though the plan must be sound, given the purchase cost. Thorntons had expressed an initial interest and it is easy to see how a chocolate retailer might develop this into a bespoke idea.  

Sweet Retailing would love to hear from any anyone that purchases Choc Creator for their business. We would be very interested to understand how its creativity has been successfully harnessed.

Would you like plastic with that?

The annual report on Easter egg packagng is out once again, thanks to Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson. Apparently in the UK, we still place 3,000 tonnes of waste into landfill, having unwrapped and enjoyed our Easter eggs.

The worst offenders were reported to be Thorntons and Marks and Spencer, still using too much plastic when packaging their Easter egg range. Nestle, Mars and Cadbury however were praised for greatly improving the situation and working with much more cardboard. Indeed Nestle recently announced that the packaging in its 2012 Easter egg range is 100% recyclable – a bold statement if ever there was one! 

The confectionery industry must take responsibility for its potential to make landfill waste, as should many other grocery industries. It is clearly a tricky balance between good presentation, safe transportation and cost management on the one side and minimising waste on the other. But if Nestle can do it…?

I guess the challenge is that confectionery shoppers, who more often than not are purchasing on impulse, do not necessarily stop and think “No! I won’t buy this one because I cannot recycle the plastic!” If the price, presentation and content fit the bill, the quick answer is just to buy it and be done. Can we blame ourselves when life is so busy and budgets are squeezed?

I would be interested to hear from any retailers that feel their customers do prioritise this issue at shelf level. Perhaps you use it as a USP for your Easter egg range?

So whilst we bash the big manufacturers and retailers over the head for producing too much landfill waste, are we as shoppers truly voting with our purchases to demand confectionery and indeed Easter eggs that are packaged with the environment in mind?

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Is UK confectionery doomed?

A recently published NHS report found that between 1997 and 2010 average consumption of sugar confectionery and chocolate in the UK fell by 39 percent among four to ten year olds and by 35 percent among 11 to 18 year olds.

So the facts suggest that in the UK, children are eating less confectionery. A good thing for childhood health in many ways but is this going to have a significant impact on the growth of the UK confectionery market going forward and is this reduction in childhood consumption really noticeable in all areas?

 

Sweet Retailing recently discussed the new confectionery Key Note report, which certainly suggested good growth for the UK confectionery market throughout 2012 and then a slower rate of growth until 2016.

 

Would it be right to assume that if childhood confectionery consumption is falling, that adult consumption of confectionery in the UK is the significant key to growth? Many of us are certainly turning to our favourite sweeties and chocolates to get us through the economic turmoil! What will we do when the UK economy has bounced back?

 

It’s an interesting one. If children are eating fewer sweets these days, such habits are likely to stay with them as they become adults. Would this suggest that the UK confectionery market is doomed once the next few generations have died off and the children of today have taken our place? Given that confectionery has such a rich and fabulous history in the UK, I would personally find this hard to believe. I am quite sure that the range of confectionery available to us will change and evolve over time but surely the joy of consumption will keep us loving all things sweet for many generations to come? I sincerely hope so!

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American beauties

I’ve just been reviewing some contributions that we have received for an American sweets article that is underway for our Sweet Retailing website – is there no limit to the UK confectionery market?! 

American sweets are clearly a growing confectionery opportunity in the UK and a number of companies have been popping up in the last few years to focus purely on this category, both online and on the high street. The future of the UK confectionery market has plenty of stars and stripes in it! 

 
Confectionery is such an exciting and interesting category to retail in the UK when you choose to look beyond the mainstream brands. I am not saying that the brands should not be considered (some sweet shops intentionally avoid them though) but there is so much more to UK confectionery than the most common brands alone. 

And we all want to buy it right now! Down in the doldrums with the state of the economy, the perfect pick-me-up is our favourite sweets or chocolate bar, even an American chocolate bar it seems. I read some research recently that discovered (somewhat unsurprisingly I thought) we predominantly turn to chocolate (and not fruit!) when we are stressed. How true. 

So confectionery retailers, think creatively, try new things, have fun and look forward to reading our article on the market for American sweets!

www.sweetretailing.co.uk