OPINION: My top 20 confectionery lines – what a difference a display makes!

Top 20 lines by profit

Analysing EPoS sales data always throws up surprises and my investigation of our confectionery sales hasn’t disappointed. I am surprised that our sales of Fruit Pastilles bags are worth more than the roll and that there are 3 large bars of chocolate in the top 5. With a box chocolate as our top performer this leaves the standard Mars Bar and 4 count lines in our top 10.

The fact that the large blocks of chocolate dominate our top 5 line is a reflection of our older demographic. Using the profit data that our EPoS system provides has enabled me to see that they deserve a double facing and this we have done along with repositioning them toward the centre of the display.

As we move along our project to test my theory that giving more space to our best seller will sell more product we have investigated where our confectionery customers stand to look at the category when they are making their purchase decision. This has guided us on to where to centre the merchandising plan, and it is not in the centre of our 3-metre display.

Using this knowledge we have clustered the best selling chocolate and filled bars around this ‘centre line’. Our top shelf now has the three best selling blocks of chocolate with double facings. The next shelf has the standard Mars Bar and KitKat 4 Finger with triple facings and further down we have made Flake, Smarties, Maltesers and Fruit Pastilles double faced.

As with all changes it feels different at the moment as we have moved away from a ‘display by manufacturer’ format. The proof though will be in our sales performance.