Gonsumables = repeat sales

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ONSUMABLES, items that customers replace as they're used up or wear out, can be the bread and butter of a home center's business.

Often low ticket items, they usually have high margins. Because they are inexpensive, customers buy them without much thought, frequently as impulse items. Easily visible displays of consumables in the aisles, on end caps or near the checkout counters can stimulate unplanned purchases or remind a shopper that he needs the item.

Many outdoor living and lawn and garden products are consumable, needing to be purchased at least once each spring or summer. Supplies of insecticides, plant food, mulch, bark, fertilizers and pool chemicals are exhausted and replaced regularly. Fresh maintenance products for decks and outdoor furniture are required each season. Annuals and seeds must be bought eachspring.

Story at a Glance

Ways to promote sales of consumables suggestions for improving impulse sales tactics to keep customers shopping longer, spending more-

A shopping list of consumables can keep a customer in the store longer as he goes from section to section to pick up various items. The longer the length of time spent in the store, the more items purchased, according to the Russell R. Mueller Retail Hardware Research Foundation. Their studies point out that keeping a customer in the store longer than l0 minutes will pay off in the number of impulse items purchased and the amount of money spent.

The hypothetical shopping list accompanying this article highlights many outdoor living and lawn and garden products purchased annually or repeatedly during the spring and summer season. These aresome of the products to display prominently at point of purchase, on end caps, pallets and dump bins. Cross merchandise them in addition to cultivating impulse sales by locating them in high traffic areas.

Increasing the sales volume of these high margin items is sure to help your bottom line.