Hershey’s plan to hook Americans onto impulse-buying chocolate again
(hershey's "chocolate" is waxy and nearly inedible, not to mention them shipping 1,500 union jobs to mexico, so. . .don't really care what they try. milton hershey must be rolling in his grave)
(the bit about the self-check lanes, intended to cut labour costs, actually costing companies money gave me a chuckle. . . . oops, unintended consequences??
Hershey’s plan to hook Americans onto impulse-buying chocolate again
Online shopping, curbside pickup and self-checkout aisles have made it quicker and easier than ever for Americans to buy the things they need. That’s a huge problem for the candy and chocolate industries, which have made billions over the years off waits at the register — and customers’ last-minute impulse buys. Those lost “instant consumable” sales, combined with “a more competitive snacking environment,” helped slow the Hershey Co.’s sales last year below expectations, the sweets company said Thursday.
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Shoppers moving too quickly to crave has become a worrying trend for the five “power” sectors of the supermarket checkout: sweets, snacks, drinks, magazines and health-related flotsam, like lip balm. Though tiny, the grab-and-go items are incredibly lucrative: Checkout areas account for 1 percent of a typical supermarket’s merchandising space but 4 percent of its profit, Jimenez said.
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For curbside grocery pickups, Hershey could upgrade kiosks or add menu boards to allow buyers one final candy grab before finishing their order. At self-checkout machines, shoppers could find a special dispenser that spits out chocolate bars on demand. The company could also dispatch an army of vending machines to grab shoppers outside the store, including, potentially, looking to “some dispensing opportunities around [gas] pumps,” Witham said.
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Perhaps the most egregious offender of the impulse buy has been self-checkout aisles, which supermarkets first turned to for lower labor costs and now account for about 40 percent of all mass-retailer sales. The supermarket world, and the providers of its treats, have lost billions of dollars on impulse opportunities since the largely unadorned self-checkouts first beeped in 1992, Jimenez said.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/01/29/fast-checkouts-are-crushing-impulse-candy-sales-heres-hersheys-plan-to-change-that/?tid=hybrid_alt1_strip_2
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