Yule fragrance sales rather merry for chains

Drug Store News, Jan 22, 1990 by Elizabeth Parks

Yule fragrance sales rather merry for chains

Early reports on Christmas sellthroughs indicate that fragrance sales were relatively strong for most chains, and much better than during the past two or three years.

Many buyers estimated fragrance sales rose about 5 percent to 7 percent; one notable exception among the Top 10 chains scored a "fabulous" 37-percent gain in the November-December period, another major was up about 15 percent.

The weather, of course, had a lot to do with results. For chains in markets hit by heavy snowstorms in November and December, sales were softer; buyers said they really needed that last-minute rush of Christmas shopping to pull them through.

Several buyers said that this year their basic stock sold much better than gift sets, with a few exceptions. One source said the Ex Cla Ma Tion! large size gift set did exceptionally well, as did the Emeraude gift sets. This chain, however, deliberately advertised their gift sets early in the season and switched the emphasis to basic stock as Christmas grew near.

"This year our advertising strategy was to build our basic business and it worked," said this source. "All our basic stock sold very well. Ex Cla Ma Tion! was very strong. California did well, Lady Stetson, Aspen, Electric Youth and our novelty items like Love's Baby Soft, Tinkerbell, kids bubble bath, especially Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and our soaps, the Delagar soaps and fragrances and the Jean Sorrel soaps, all did well."

One of the industry's largest chains, trying to avoid big closeouts on gift sets, adopted an aggressive display tactic: gift sets with a suggested retail price of $13.50 to $14.50 were marked down to $9.99. They merchandised the sets on a table in a high traffic aisle, and sales immediately picked up.

Some buyers felt that gift set sales were soft because the sets themselves weren't especially attractive. One buyer said he put some of his fragrance gift sets next to candy gift sets costing between $5 and $8 and the candy sets made a much stronger merchandising statement. "They made a much nicer gift set," he said, "which bothers me because I'm fighting candy, appliances and other gift opportunities for my fragrance sale."

For some chains, cosmetic sales were also strong this year at Christmas, but the majority of the buyers we talked to told us that this year their cosmetic sales were not as strong as fragrances.

At Peoples Drug, for instance, which continues to upscale its cosmetics departments, cosmetics sales were up an estimated 10-15 percent. For other chains with softer cosmetics sales, the problem seems to have been space. Several buyers said they just couldn't give the category that much off-shelf display space at such a busy time of the year.

Cosmetic gift sets, however, were an exception. Almost all sources said cosmetic gift sets sold very well this year. Revlon's Christmas Color Gala set was singled out by several sources, as was their 12 Shades of Christmas set.

Several sources also said Cover Girl gift sets sold well, as did Maybelline nails.

In fragrances, buyers said Aspen sold very well, making it a strong candidate for the best men's mass fragrance launch of 1989. That Man did all right in some chains, Hero sold well, but wasn't as strong as last year when it was first launched, and many buyers said Night Spice and Sante Fe did okay.