Category is the only tobacco segment to record year-on-year spikes since 2002. The moist smokeless tobacco(MST) category is the only growingtobacco category, and has been increasing at 4-6% per year consistentlysince 2002. Over the past few years, theMST category has developed three distincttiers (See Figure 1). Tier one (premium)accounts for more than 59% of MST [...]
Sales to minors are needlessly costing retailers thousands in fines, and some are facing the loss of their tobacco license. State and local governments, under the guise of public safety, are continuing to pursue “sting” operations to identify irresponsible convenience store clerks that are selling tobacco products to minors. While safety, I’m sure, is part [...]
Besieged by taxes and a decline in gross profit margins, there are signs that import and specialty brands could be the key to tobacco profitability. Though there have been calls by industry expertsfor convenience store companies to reduce their dependencyon cigarettes, the industry overall is becoming more reliant ontobacco sales. The National Association of Convenience [...]
Retailers report strong sales and profits in OTP boosted by cigars. According to the National Association of Convenience Stores’ 2006 State of the Industry (SOI) report, retailers can expect the other tobacco (OTP) category to keep on growing with flavored cigars driving that growth. Cigar sales last year jumped 5.2% and accounted for 30.48% of [...]
As New Jersey faces its fourth excise tax increase in four years, retailers are watching their dwindling tobacco sales head across state lines. Every state has its own issues to deal with, but it seems that New Jersey has been dealt a particularly difficult hand. “New Jersey is a difficult state for convenience stores to [...]
Premium products driving the moist smokeless tobacco business, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco said. An influx of deep-discount products is leading retailers to change the way they merchandise moist smokeless tobacco (MST) products, and experts are concerned that these changes are adversely affecting moist smokeless profitability. As the deep-discount segment has grown in volume, it is compressing [...]
Premium products driving the moist smokeless tobacco business, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco says. An influx of deep-discount products is forcing retailers to change the way they merchandise moist smokeless tobacco (MST) products and experts are concerned that these changes are adversely affecting moist smokeless profitability. As the deep-discount segment has grown in volume, it is compressing [...]
Convenience Store Decisions’ Reader’s Choice Awards honor the top performers in more than 20 in-store categories. “Honesty,” “integrity” and “committed to the industry.” These were just a fewof the glowing accolades industry-retailers had for their supplier partnersin Convenience Store Decisions‘ first annual Reader’s Choice Awards. “We consider our relationships with retail and wholesale partners to [...]
Motivated by the growing deep-discount price segment of moist smokeless tobacco, Fas Mart is using premium products to drive volume and maintain store profitability. Since the late 90s convenience store retailers have experienced the rapid expansion of a deep-discount price segment, often referred to as the sub-price value segment, in the moist smokeless tobacco category. [...]
With gas prices reaching obscene levels, sales of premium cigarettes could suffer in the short term. The past 10 months have been a pretty wild ride for Julie Van Alyea.Van Alyea, retail merchandise manager for Redwood Oil Co. (Santa Rosa, CA),has noticed a significant change in her most important instore category: cigarettes.While she has heard [...]
Eric Dean remembers walking into a store as a child with a note from his mother saying, “Please sell my son a pack of Pall Malls for me.” Things have changed a lot since then. Retailers have become much more responsible, for instance, by taking greater precautions to ensure that tobacco products don’t fall into [...]
A decade ago, RJ Reynolds took a journey to the center of its Doral brand, located its DNA, and began rebuilding it from the inside out. For convenience retailers, there is much to be learned from the example. Flash back to that infamous Friday in 1993, when Philip Morris took swift and dramatic action to [...]
Seeking better ways to manage the cigarette category as a means of securing more gross profit dollars? A ’six-step’ analysis may help uncover hidden profits. Even though the “same firms” database of CStoreXchange (CSX) shows that 2004 cigarette dollar sales may approximate 1% more per store versus 2003, when you factor in tax and price [...]
A bold new store image helps Nice N Easy in its quest to become the ’Wegmans of convenience retailing.’ Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes has no fear of going out on a limb. In the face of dwindling cigarette sales—the chain has seen its carton sales cut in half over the past five years due [...]
Cigars and moist smokeless tobacco items bearing exotic aromas and tastes account for much of the non-cigarette tobacco category’s recent sales growth. ‘Who would have guessed that apple would be such a strong flavor?" asks Kent Raphael, vice president of merchandising for Village Pantry LLC (Indianapolis, IN). He’s not asking about a hot-selling juice drink [...]