Professional hair care lures new consumers

Drug Store News, Sept 7, 1992

Professional hair care is quickly becoming an integral part of the typical chain drug hair care department.

Within the past two years, many chains have begun buying the biggest professional hair care brands direct, rather than through distributors.

Now that chains have established histories on which brands and items are selling fastest, they are starting to change the way they merchandise the professional hair care category.

With a few exceptions like Eckerd and Kmart, who are still very committed to Pro-Sets for professional hair, chains like Walgreens, Osco, Revco, CVS, Brooks, Thrift, PayLess and Thrifty are integrating professional brands into their general market planograms. Sometimes they position the professional brands as a segment within the category and sometimes they merchandise them by price points. For example, Redmond next to Vidal Sassoon, Infusium next to Pantene and Tresemme next to Jheri Redding.

The strategy has made it harder to quantify how fast the professional hair care category is growing. Some buyers contend that it has peaked. But most buyers say that individual brands within the segment such as Redmond's Aussie, Tresemme, Infusium, Frizz Ease, Citre Shine, Stiff Stuff, All Set and Hask, are doing very well, particularly with their newest items.

"New products drive this category," says Steve Dubin who buys professional hair care for Douglas/Maxi Drug in Rhode Island. "You have to constantly stay on top of it because it is the new lines and the new items coming into retail from the salon market that drive the business."

In the past, chain drug stores have used professional hair care to boutique their stores and enhance their image.

Professional hair has helped chain drug stores establish a point of difference against competitors in the food and mass merchandise industry. It has given them almost an exclusive on a product category that is very7 profitable, but also very specialized.

"Wal-mart stays away from professional hair care because they need branded products and price points that their customers can identify with," said Kinney Drug's hair care buyer, Robert Burtis.

"So as a drug chain, we're looking more and more for products like this where we can be different. Tresemme, Redmond's Aussie, L'Oreal's Permavive and Colorvive - these have all been very, very good for us. They may not all be professional products, but they have a prestige image. We merchandise them together as a group, and even without advertising, they do well."

Says Rite Aid's hair care buyer, Beth Dugan: "Semi-professional hair care has done well for us. We merchandise it in our regular hair care planogram as part of our premium section. It's a higher ticket sale and it's profitable."

Professional hair care has also known buyers that it makes sense to merchandise major brands by family rather than category segments. Years ago, most of the mass lines were merchandised by categories, but the professional lines were kept together in their pro sets as families

Their success was so dramatic that chains began adopting the family merchandising approach in their general market categories, and now many chains merchandise lines like Colorvive, Permavive, Salon Selectives, Finesse and Sassoon as families, with all the products together except, occasionally, hair prays.

In Indiana, Marilyn Phelps, who buys cosmetics and fragrances for Keltsch Brothers, a 17-store chain, says she's had a professional hair care section for some time now, and it's continuing to do well.

Keltsch used to buy professional hair care products from a beauty supplier, but these days the chain is direct with many of the professional hair care suppliers. Redmond, Tresemme, DeMert and Infusium all go through the Keltsch warehouse.

Like many chains who are now buying professional hair care direct rather than through distributors, Keltsch has begun merchandising professional hair care brands in their general market hair care.

The category has a four-foot section right at the end of the regular shampoo aisle.

However, it Douglas/Maxi Drug in Rhode Island, hair care buyer Steve Dubin still prefers to merchandise professional hair in a separate eight-foot professional set close to general market hair care.

Dubin believes that customers who buy professional hair care in drug stores "don't want to bother looking in the regular hair care department. They basically know what they want when they come. They tend to buy items from the same family - maybe a shampoo, conditioner and a styling aid - and they like the convenience of being able to get in and out without having to look all over for what they want."