If you’re a small, independent convenience store chain, working to boost candy sales is crucial to helping overall store sales succeed. When you elevate candy sales, you are going to automatically improve nearly every other large category in the c-store.
It’s not just that consumers purchasing candy might need something to drink with that tempting candy extravaganza, or that they might crave and create their own version of “sweet and sour” by grabbing a bag of chips to balance out that trifecta purchase. It’s more so that candy — especially chocolate candy — is, in my opinion and that of hundreds of millions of others, the happiest purchase of all. This helps customers remember your store in a positive light too, which means they’re more likely to select your store for purchases in the future.
But in order to attract candy buyers, developing a well-stocked and attractive candy aisle is key.
Already candy manufacturers are creating fun and engaging promotions and advertising. Your part in the equation, if you are truly interested in growing this great and simple category, is to make the candy readily accessible.
Lots of customers walk right to the candy aisle and bring their purchase to the cash register, but not everyone comes to a c-store with candy purchases in mind. Still, you have a chance to use suggestive selling to entice customers stopping in to pay for gas or buy tobacco or other products to consider a candy impulse buy at the checkout counter.
Make sure that you have candy on promotion sitting on the front counter so that associates can upsell the items at checkout. See that candy shippers are set up on the sales floor, and do not forget the tried-and-true adage that a display is “undressed” without a price sign. Check that designated signage throughout both your store’s interior and exterior are up to date. Also have employees wear small badges, pins or t-shirts that can help advertise candy or various candy promotions. To take candy to the next level, like the say in baseball, be a “five tool player.”
