By using the key retailing space to greatest effect, you can influence the consumers' choice of drink.
The challenge for the on-trade is to embrace retailing standards that maximise the appeal of your pub to your customers, and ensure your profits have never been greater.
In this latest series of Category Management we look at some of the key areas that you can focus on to make more profit from the brands you are selling.
Industry research suggests that over 60 per cent of consumers have still not made their mind up as to what to drink when they first enter your bar. On average when they do get to the bar it takes them a further 10 seconds to decide.
How you merchandise your brands by understanding the principles of "hotspots" can make it a great deal easier for consumers to make their choice of the brands they want, and allow you the opportunity to trade them into categories that will make you more profit.
Coors Brewers recognises the "corridor of power" - where every consumer entering your outlet, is influenced by different areas as they walk from the entrance of your pub to the bar. By using the key retailing space to greatest effect, you can influence their choice of drink to optimising retail profit?
What are the Bar Hotspots?
- The bar top
- Chiller space, normally behind the bar
- The back-bar, eye level
Bar top
The hotspot on the bar is the area with the highest commercial value. It is straightforward to identify as it is normally the area that your consumers, walks straight to.
The area three metres to the right is recognised as being the hotspot. The hotspot should reflect those draught beer brands that have the highest throughputs and provide you with the highest margin.
Correct siting of impactful and illuminated fonts within the hotspots can deliver an average of seven per cent uplift on sales, when the brand is moved from a different area of the bar.
Brands that provide low rates of sale, or low margin should be moved to the "discovery spaces". Consumers will search for them.
Coors Brewers has developed a tool kit which will help you to identify the optimal layout of draught brands on your bar top, to maximise your overall category profit.
Chiller hotspot
Chiller space is valuable. We recommend that you consider using planograms to help maximise retail profit by identifying the most appropriate position and space allocations for products based on throughput and margin.
Tests show that pubs who have merchandised chillers using a planogram, have grown their packaged drinks category gross profit by over 10 per cent.
Consumers will only look in one chiller to make a choice: only split the packaged category across two chillers if they are adjacent to each other.
If chillers are non-adjacent, each chiller must stock beers and FABS.
For clarity of offer:
- Stock categories vertically
- Stock brands horizontally
- Stock all flavours of one brand together to maximise impact.
- Ensure a minimum of two facings per SKU
- The hotspot is located in the centre of the top and middle shelves
The benefits are clear:
- Presents consumers with a clear and consistent offer
- Grows your profit
- Speed of service is optimised by allocating space according to rate of sale. The right products, always available, always chilled!
Back-bar
If you were a supermarket your back-bar would be your "Gondola End" - the part of your business where you focus your effort on providing retail focus to those brands you really want to drive.
Frequently this prime retailing space is dominated by your slowest moving lines, like liqueurs, or glasseware, charity boxes and clutter.
Simply by freeing this space up behind the bar, you can focus on displaying brands that are on promotion, that are being heavily advertised on TV, or new products that you want your consumers to try.
Focus on doing the basics right and watch your profits grow.
Top Tips
- Identify where your hotspots are in the bar
- Ensure that you have brands with the highest draught throughput in the hotspot
- Use a planogram to maximise the profit from your chiller
- Remove any clutter around the bar
- Use this space to focus those brands on promotion
- Use hotspots behind the bar for those brands you want to promote.