Brand war fierce for consumer share of mind - Housewares

Discount Store News, Oct 16, 1995

Plastic storage and cookware are promising areas for expansion within the housewares department, making housewares one of the top hot growth categories identified by DSN research. Like any frontier area, housewares offer discounters much opportunity--and a good share of risk.

Consumers have not selected any one brand as a clear leader. No brand gained more than a 14% overall share of consumer mentions, leaving the field open to new national brands and private labels. At the same time, consumers have plenty of retail store options--besides discount stores--when deciding where to purchase their most-desired brands. This adds another element of risk for the merchants.

Over the past 18 months, power retailers like Homeplace, a housewares/soft home chain, have expanded their play in these categories, cashing in on consumers' desire for home products. Even The Incredible Universe, Tandy's megastore chain devoted to computers, consumer electronics and white goods, has added a new cookware section and expanded its kitchen appliances offerings.

"The cookware doesn't really belong at our store, but it's what the consumers kept asking for," one executive said.

Category sales at the discount store level grew 7% last year, bringing the department's total up to $9 million, according to DSN's 1995 productivity report (Aug. 7). But according to this year's Power Brands study, housewares consumers are more brand-rigid and less confident with discounters' mix than they were last year.

On a positive note, the category seems to be bucking the downturn in national brands expansion. When asked about expanding national brands at discount, only one-third said more brands were added this year, the lowest such response in at least four years.

Despite this, housewares ranks second among departments poised for growth by national brands.

About one-fifth of mass merchants surveyed said their housewares departments had expanded national brand selection in the past year, although even this is slightly depressed from last year. About one-quarter to one-third of retailers mentioned housewares as a brand growth category 12 months ago.

This brand growth has not translated effectively to consumers. On a scale of one to nine (with nine showing total consumer confidence), consumers rated their confidence of finding their preferred brands at their favorite store at 7.29 in housewares, down from 7.61 a year ago, then the highest confidence score in the previous five-year period.

About two-thirds of housewares shoppers have a definite brand preference, the survey said, a bit of a dip from last year, but up overall during the past four years.

Only 52% were willing to switch to another brand if the most preferred brand was absent from the shelves. Last year, 58% of respondents were willing to change brands if their preferred brand was unavailable. Thus, more consumers are willing to skip the purchase entirely if they can't find what they want.

Also, private label lost a bit of its appeal this year. Two-thirds of consumers said they were willing to sample a store brand in the housewares category compared to almost three-quarters who made that claim a year ago. Of course, customer feelings toward a store brand range from segment to segment within the category, meaning customers may be more willing to purchase a store brand shelf liner than they would be willing to buy a store brand high-tech vacuum cleaner.

Rubbermaid and Black & Decker are the current Power Brands in housewares, scoring high with retailers and consumers. In fact, B&D is a duel Power Brand, scoring high in hardware and in housewares.

As far as consumer preference goes, Rubbermaid leads the pack, but Black Decker, General Electric and the Coming divisions--which earned Power Brand status in the dishware/glassware category--and the rest of the brands are somewhat massed together for top-of-mind status.

Life stages had little effect on brand awareness or even brand preference, with the exception of Power Brand Black & Decker with Empty Nesters. The brand scored with one-sixth of total mentions, clearly ahead of Rubbermaid, which had only one out of 10 mentions.

This ranking was flipped in the Baby Busters and Baby Boomers life stages, where Rubbermaid received about one-sixth of total mentions and B&D fell into the middle of the pack.

In the plastic storage/home organization area, discounters seem to be on target with their brand mix. Power Brand Rubbermaid has again topped both the consumers' preferred brand lilst and the retailers' bestperformers chart.

Storage product maker Sterilite was new to the discounters' top 10 this year, debuting at No. 7.

Rubbermaid's overall strong performance varied regionally. According to retailers, the plastics maker performs twice as well in the Midwest as it does in the South.

Commenting on the popularity of meal-making products, Paul Powers, merchandise manager at regional discounter Hills, told DSN why cookware is such a hot part of housewares today.

"Cookware's strength is a function of increasing customer acceptance of better quality/higher price points in the discount channel, with particular emphasis on strong brands like T-Fal and Revere," he said.