Commentary From Our Chairman / CEO
A Time for Learning at FMI
Michael D. Sleeper, Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Distributors, Inc.
Recently, we joined hundreds of senior-level food industry executives from across the country at the FMI Midwinter Conference. Like most of our industry meetings and trade events, these venues offer exceptional opportunities to network and interact with retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and fellow distributors. They are also an opportunity through their educational workshops and sessions to learn and talk about the critical industry issues and the latest trends and business strategies.
Taking the time to learn is always time well spent, and one of the sessions that seized my attention was a presentation by Doug Stephens, the “retail prophet” and consumer futurist.
He stated that the retail world we have known has changed dramatically and that today there is no “typical consumer” or single channel for shopping. The shopper today is more sophisticated, more knowledgeable, and has immediate access via social media and their mobile devices to information about products and where to buy them. As we know, they are ethnically, economically, culturally and educationally unique and diverse. Clearly, a one size fits all mentality in retailing is not an option today or in the future.
Stephens also made a very significant observation that “it is no longer what you sell, but how you sell it, and how you deliver the experience to the shopper”. With that comment so noted, we came back from FMI with a renewed commitment to better understand the unique needs and preferences of our retailers’ shoppers, especially for HBW and GM products.
It is very important to collaborate with retailers to better understand their customers and what they want from their shopping experience. Securing “actionable analytics” and customer scan data, rather than purchasing movement helps provide the right non-foods product assortments, promotions, pricing, merchandising, and productive space allocation.
Collaboration with brokers and manufacturers help to identify new trends and products. Category managers and planograming customizes non-food assortments which meet the needs of retailer’s unique and diverse customer demographics.
This is why it’s so important to have access to multiple lines of General Merchandise, like kitchen tools and gadgets, bakeware, and brush and broom to name only a few. Broad assortments provide more shoppers with what they want.
Another area that we can collaborate with our customers is how to be more productive in cross-merchandising non-foods with grocery items. Tie-in basters and lacers with the turkeys during the holidays, apple corers with the apples, toys with the cereal, wine accessories with wine, can increase impulse sales, but also make the shopping experience less confusing and non-food products easier to find and sell.
The conference renewed our commitment to continue to focus our efforts on having the right non-foods products and promotions that will resonate with the millennial shopper; the shopper concerned with their product being natural, made in America and eco-friendly; the shopper who is value-oriented; and the shopper who wants product that is culturally and ethnically relevant. Because we are fortunate to have such a broad retail customer base, we have been able to challenge our category managers to have the product and promotions to meet those diverse consumer non-foods needs.
There were many thought-provoking and beneficial sessions at FMI’s Midwinter Conference, and they each re-enforced a commitment to make the shopping experience relevant, easier and more rewarding for shoppers.
For comments or questions, contact us by phone at 508-756-5156, or e-mail: msleeper@imperialdistributors.com