Battery-operated power tools

Drug Store News, April 7, 2003

Value-priced, battery-operated power tools are beginning to emerge from the housewares business, landing on the shelves of drug stores, where they provide chains higher-ticket, higher-margin, more impulse-driven alternatives to more conventional, less profitable and less exciting hardware items.

The segment is evolving from just a few products made by Cleveland-based Igo Home Products, a designer and manufacturer of houseware tools and accessories. But it could be a gem of a new category that has appeal for men and women and is value-priced enough to generate incremental sales at above-average margins. Igo's offerings include the Kitchen Drawer Power Tools line, which features such items as powered screwdrivers and cordless, battery-operated drills retailing for less than $20.

Igo first found its way into the drug store industry in fourth quarter 2001 when Walgreens featured Igo's Grip & Drive, a battery-operated screwdriver, as a Christmas promotion. That item and a second one, Igo's Grip & Zip Cordless Drill, now are available every day at Walgreens. They also have been featured at Rite Aid, Longs, Eckerd, Kinney, Bartell and London Drugs.

"If you are looking for compact, high-margin items that generate impulse sales," one merchandising executive said, "these are the kinds of items you test. If they do well promotionally, then you find a home for them, and, since they are impulse items, a sidekick on an endcap works just fine."