Retailers give store promotions cosmetic flair

Drug Store News, Oct 10, 1994 by Liz Parks

For chain drug stores to grow their cosmetics business, they have to develop strategies to pull shoppers into the department.

In the past, the average drug chain typically relied on advertised specials and price item advertising to create traffic for cosmetics. In recent months, some chains have been experimenting with other types of marketing techniques, including promotions designed to encourage repeat visits to their stores or promotions designed to encourage product sampling and trial purchases.

Customers rewarded

In the New York market, Kinney Drug has been courting traffic with shopper incentive programs that reward customers who regularly return to Kinney to buy cosmetics.

In one instance, cosmetic buyer Sue Young worked with her Revlon sales representative to create a Preferred Customer Club for Revlon users.

Kinney cosmeticians offer the card to women when they buy a Revlon cosmetic. Each time a cardholder makes a $2 purchase of any Revlon product, the cosmetician punches a hole in the card. When the punches for purchases total $40, the customer is entitled to $10 of Revlon products.

Revlon manages the promotion, but it's exclusive to Kinney Drug.

Young worked out a similar frequent shopper reward program with her May-belline representative. When a customer buys a Maybelline product in Kinney stores, the cosmetician offers her an envelope, similar to a bank envelope, to keep receipts and UPC codes. When she buys any five products, she gets the sixth one free.

"It's very simple, very easy to do, and it works beautifully," Young said.

"The Revlon program is a little more complicated, but it's also worked beautifully," she said. "We now have the names and addresses of about 1,300 Revlon preferred customers on file, and we're able to do additional promotions with them through the mail."

Young said the Revlon sales representative has also created a quarterly newsletter that she mails free to preferred customers. It contains news about new Revlon products plus cents-off and dollar-off coupons that preferred customers can redeem in Kinney stores.

Young introduced the promotions early this summer. Because they worked so well and because they don't erode Kinney's margins the way discounting does, Young has asked L'Oreal and P&G to see what types of destination-building promotions they can develop for Kinney.

"We've had tremendous support from the manufacturers for these promotions," she said, "and it's better that each manufacturer comes up with its own approach because we get more creativity that way."