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KEASBEY, N.J. — The story of how ShopRite stores became "a showroom for brands" in the health and beauty category illustrates how a determined team of category managers overcame inertia and changed the way manufacturers viewed the grocery store.
The story of how ShopRite stores became "a showroom for brands" in the health and beauty category illustrates how a determined team of category managers overcame inertia and changed the way manufacturers viewed the grocery store.
It also explains how Chris Skyers, vice president of health and beauty care at Wakefern Food Corp., the marketing and distribution arm for ShopRite stores, came to be named Merchant of the Year for 2014 by MMR.
Skyers has been instrumental in assembling a team at Wakefern that over the past three years persistently persuaded manufacturers to collaborate with the retailer in ways that could make ShopRite’s health and beauty care offerings more relevant to consumers.
"Traditionally, health and beauty manufacturers did not see a supermarket as the target retailer in this space," Skyers says. "We had to reposition ourselves as progressive, creative and collaborative so that we could compete with the more traditional players in this market."
To build the team he wanted, Skyers says he first had to change the thinking within his own industry, where category managers with hard-nosed negotiating tactics were seen as having the ideal skill set needed to drive the business.
"I felt that what we really want are people who are creative. We need people who are assertive and confident but who also are great at creating that interpersonal relationship with manufacturers to build a new way of going to retail with these items," Skyers says.
The Wakefern team began to change the way health and beauty brands viewed ShopRite when it started sharing insights into customers’ demand and showing manufacturers how they could mutually benefit by aligning with that consumer, Skyers says.
"Manufacturers see a team willing to take that journey with them. We have a track record. We can learn quickly and are open to new ways of doing things. [They] don’t have to come to us with an idea that is fully fleshed out," he says.
For health and beauty manufacturers willing to experiment, ShopRite stores offer some other compelling advantages, Skyers says, including Wakefern’s proximity to where many brands are headquartered, its regional prominence in the Northeast and some of the highest sales volumes in the country.
ShopRite was the greater New York area’s market leader, with 23.3% of sales (5 percentage points ahead of No. 2 Stop & Shop), according to data for the first half of 2014 from the Food Institute. About half of the stores that Wakefern supports are in the New York City area. It also has stores in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware (these include the ShopRite as well as Price Rite and The Fresh Grocer banners).
Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble Co., Unilever PLC and Colgate-Palmolive Co. are among the manufacturers that have worked with ShopRite on health and beauty care initiatives. "We’re working with Unilever to test end-line units that are so inspirational to [beauty] consumers," Skyers says. "We’re the first in the globe to have a TRESemmé end-cap designed through a partnership to help drive sales."
Skyers’ team worked this year with Colgate and recycling company TerraCycle Inc. on a contest promoted in ShopRite stores giving schools a chance to win a playground made of recycled oral care materials. More than 100 schools participated, earning credits by sending in used oral care products. The winning school, BelovED Community Charter School in Jersey City, N.J., received its new playground in November.
"It was a big deal for them," says Skyers, who attended the ribbon-cutting at the school for students in kindergarten through the fourth grade. "They didn’t have money to build the playground themselves. Putting this together and seeing the kids together is the essence of collaboration. It’s amazing how much more we accomplish when we collaborate."
