How Heineken has teamed up with Bestway Batleys to implement its Star Retailer programme in depot and boost beer and cider sales.
Over the past five years, Heineken has driven sales for convenience retailers with its Star Retailer scheme, which focuses on range, category and space to help shop owners make improvements to their stores. The programme has seen retailers report a 12% uplift in sales and now Heineken is for the first time bringing those practices to depot.
Heineken is in the process of relaying all 60 of Bestway Batleys’ depots, with a view to having the top 38 done by the end of the year.
1. Range
Maintaining a strong range and availability of bestselling brands is key to driving sales, so Heineken ensured these were unmissable in depot. The team added branded PoS to grab customers’ attention to these key brands.
Steven Gifford, range planning manager for Heineken, says: “The research we’ve seen says retailers primary needs in depot such as having a good range, good availability on key lines and a logical layout are not always being met. This project is designed to address all three. We have used depot specific sales data to work out the space that each category and brand has, so each planogram is truly bespoke to that depot.”
2. Category
Once the depot range has been agreed on, the next step is to create a layout by category and sub category in a logical way. This mirrors the Star Retailer advice and hopefully makes it easier for the retailer to find what he is looking for more quickly. It’s key that we have a consistent message from depot to store. Heineken added in shelf-strips that showed what category the products belonged to.
“We regularly talk to retailers in their stores about the way we segment the market, having this information communicated consistently in depot reinforces the message.” Gifford says.
3. Space
Maintaining a strong range and availability of bestselling brands is key to driving sales, so Heineken ensured these were unmissable in depot. The team added branded PoS to grab customers’ attention to these key brands. Gifford says: “The research we’ve seen says retailers primary needs in depot such as having a good range, good availability on key lines and a logical layout are not always being met. This project is designed to address all three. We have used depot specific sales data to work out the space that each category and brand has, so each planogram is truly bespoke to that depot.”
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