Rite Aid should give Taylor customers a 'Christmas' gift

Drug Store News, July 8, 1996 by Liz Parks

Rite Aid made a smart move when it purchased Louisville, Ky.-based Taylor Drug.

The 34-unit chain has been around for 117 years, and it has a loyal following in its hometown markets.

Taylor also generates a significant portion of its sales from cosmetics and fragrances, which fits in well with Rite Aid's new commitment to beauty.

Taylor has always been original when it comes to promoting beauty care. For the past three years, it has sponsored a unique "Christmas in July" promotion, which Marcia Springer, who was the cosmetics buyer for Taylor, said has improved sales "substantially" each year.

This year, Taylor had planned to repeat "Christmas in July" for a fourth time, with the idea that the chain would expand the promotion to include other front-end departments like toys and greeting cards.

That won't happen now. After four years as Taylor's cosmetics buyer, Springer will be leaving the company this August. But the promotions that she helped Taylor create are very much worth talking about.

Christmas is always a major holiday for beauty care, but the summer can be a dead time. Taylor Drug helped change that with "Christmas in July." Taylor used print, television and in-store signing to communicate the excitement of "Christmas in July."

This year, the chain had planned to distribute a coupon book for the first time. Springer said 12 of the 24 pages in the book were to have been devoted to cosmetics and fragrance products.

Each of the 34 stores was preparing to put up Christmas trees. The endcaps in the cosmetics aisles were going to be adorned with tinsel and garlands.

Taylor was able to create special events like Christmas in July because the chain invested in a team of merchandisers who would go from store to store helping the cosmeticians set up the displays. Each of the three merchandisers were responsible for about 11 stores.

Springer said the merchandisers had a flair for creating attractive displays. "They could do in 15 or 20 minutes what would take me at least a day. We trained them, but they also seemed to have an instinct for how things should go," she said.

As part of the Christmas in July promotion, Taylor would give its customers free sample products for each 95 spent in cosmetics. Each store had a wooden four-sided fixture near its registers, each holding 32 clear fishbowls packed with trial sizes.

"If a woman bought a $50 designer fragrance, she would be entitled to 10 free sample products," Springer said. "We didn't have POS, so I can't estimate how much our sales increased when we did this promotion, but it was substantial.

"We wanted customers to have a good feeling about shopping our stores, and we wanted them to linger enough to notice what we carried and to notice all the new promotional items," she added.

"We also wanted them to feel they were getting good value when they shopped us. People really liked the samples, especially in the summer when they do a lot of traveling."

Taylor's commitment to cosmetics, and the imaginative support it gave the department over the years, made it easier for them to develop a strong cosmetics/fragrance business year round.

That's quite an accomplishment at a time when many drug chains, large as well as regional, are worrying about how they can support a fragrance department 12 months out of the year.

Taylor's success in building a year-round beauty care business should make it easier for Rite Aid to achieve the investment returns it looks for in cosmetics.

Rite Aid has a great new prototype in its beauty focus stores. But it would be nice if it could keep some of the Taylor traditions alive, particularly the idea of giving customers a "Christmas in July" beauty-promotion.