Blogs

Lauren Bartel, Wellness Category Manager

Summer is still blazing, and the holidays seem distant, but anyone who's lived through a full year in retail knows that looking ahead and planning for the intensity of the fourth quarter in advance is very wise. Once you're in the thick of it, it can be tough to find the time to do anything beyond ordering, stocking the shelves, and offering customer service. Here are a few wellness-specific tips from our own years on the floor:

Sales & POS

Prep your sales sheets. If you set up direct promotions with brands in addition to INFRA Deals, get your sales sheets formatted and ready to go now, so that all you must do is add in last minute additions and you're ready to go when October rolls around.

Plan flash sales for brands and buy-up in advance. Negotiate deals or take advantage of holiday pre-order discounts. We liked running a different gift brand on flash sale each weekend in November and December. It built excitement and led to many impulse purchases. Socks, candles, body lotion, essential oils, bar soaps, books, woolens, lip balm, and anything else that makes a good present or stocking stuffer are great contenders.

Get as creative as your POS will allow - Buy 2 Get 1 Free? BOGO? 50% off? 3/$6? Deep discounts are often more compelling than dollar amounts (especially in wellness where prices can be high). And make sure to sign your biggest sales in a big way! The "while supplies last" caveat is key for flash sales, since you might sell through everything faster than you thought possible.

Prep your clearance sales. If you have holiday-specific merchandise, have your clearance plan ready to go and make sure key staff know that plan. Consider what day you want to start your holiday clearance, and what discounts you will use. I recommend a small discount a few days before the holiday (if you feel that you have excess product) and a deep discount immediately after the holiday. Move it out to make room for something fresh and more relevant!

Be smart about your registers. Make sure to change up your register product mix seasonally. Electrolytes and sunscreen are great in the summer, but moving into fall/winter, pick a different set of items - zinc lozenges, travel size hand cream, elderberry gummies, hand sanitizer, single serve warming beverage packets, etc.

Endcaps & Category Management

Plan your endcap themes to be seasonally relevant. Rinse and repeat. The fourth quarter is a great time to focus on immune support, stress/sleep, and digestion in supplements. For body care, lotions, bulk bar soap, diffusion & essential oils, bath salts/bombs, lip balm and travel sizes are all great to give extra display space to. Some brands offer seasonal scents (Moon Valley, Mrs. Meyers, Humble Deodorant come to mind). Keep any seasonally specific items out on promo until you sell through. We set up for Thanksgiving and Christmas right after Halloween, both in order to move through our seasonal merch and to create a festive shopping atmosphere.

Make endcap changes easy. Consider creating a system that you run on repeat each month. As direct orders and distributed product come in, have a designated location to store the endcap product. Metro shelving on wheels is fantastic because you can roll the whole shebang out when it comes time to build your endcaps. Create an endcap plan with specific SKUs noted for each shelf. I like Excel, but notebook paper will do the job, too. Tape the plan to your backstock as those orders start coming in so that you know what orders have arrived, what are still shipping, and whether you’ll need a backup plan for any of your shelves. Have your closer take down the old endcaps, and your opener build the new ones first thing the next day.

Run a category review. If you're able, run a category review on your biggest fourth quarter categories before October arrives - you want to have high performing SKUs, trending items, and space appropriately allocated. Trying to sort it all out in the middle of the holiday rush can be difficult.

Take advantage of INFRA holiday ordering. Socks. Darn Tough, Tey Art, Maggie's. They sell themselves, and the earlier you order, the higher the likelihood that you'll be able to get a discount. They can be merchandised in baskets, bins, crates, or hanging.

Engage with your local brands now to set up demos for your busiest days/times in November and December. Make sure they bring backup product in case they sell through what you have on the shelf. They can always invoice you for what they brought day-of. You might consider running the brand on promo for the sale period that they'll be demoing in.

Labor & Staffing

Set up a demo. If you have the labor to manage it, it can be nice to set up a tasty passive demo on your busiest days (think mushroom cocoa, golden milk, herbal tea). You can team up with your deli and put out some pumpkin bread or sugar cookies or add a stress relief gummy demo to the mix. Make sure to have ample product on display, prices marked, and to replenish or clean it up when you run out.

Do staffing smarter. Check in with your buyers to see if they need any extra help as they prep their holiday orders. If you have folks going on vacation, make sure you know what you need to do to cover for them. Ask for staff time-off requests as far in advance as possible and make sure you're not accidentally giving all your key people the same days off.

And now that you've taken care of all of that, head on back to the beach!

If you have questions, please reach out to Lauren Bartel, Wellness Category Manager, at lbartel@infretailers.com. If you have winning wellness strategies to share, please post them in our Communities Forums! We love hearing from you! My Communities - INFRA (naturalfoodretailers.com)