Dynamic sun care category poses unique opportunities

Drug Store News, April 5, 1993

Consumers love the sun. But in today's uncertain world, they know that too much sun exposure can be dangerous.

That's why sales of sun tanning and sun protection products boom in regions where the sun is strong and the weather is sultry.

However, for all its consumer benefits and growth prospects, sun care, as a retail category, is not an easy department to manage.

Sales of sun protection products may be fairly predictable, motivated as they are by consumer fears about harmful sun damage as well as cosmetic concerns about wrinkling and aging, but peak season sales are not at all predictable.

"Sun care is not like toothpaste or shampoo," a buyer for a major chain recently told Drug Store News. "If the sun isn't shining, many people don't think they need sun care. So if you are featuring a sun care line in your advertising and you get hit with several days or weeks of rainy weather, you could have a problem unless you're flexible."

Last year, the Pacific Northwest was blessed with benign weather conditions and, not surprisingly, sun care sales jumped 30% to 40% in that region.

But let it rain like it did last year in the northeast, mid west and most sun belt states, and sales fizzle. Chains in these regions reported that 1992 sales were flat or down because of the weather.

"Sun care is an impulse category," said one buyer. "When the weather's good, and customers see the products on display, they buy several types of products. But when the weather's bad, very few customers think of sun care. They don't come in with a shopping list the way they will for shampoos or deodorants."

Many chains attack this problem by developing "partnership" programs with the category's leading manufacturers. They're looking for programs that help them maximize sales by focusing on the growth segments of the cate-gory, and they're looking for marketing strategies that will give them the flexibility to change their advertising programs when bad weather warrants such changing.

The key demand is flexibility, a fact borne out by a recent independent buyer survey sponsored by Drug Store News and implemented by White Marketing.

The study was designed to identify the needs of sun care buyers and merchandisers, and one of its key findings confirms that most retailers are concerned about finding ways to minimize the category's dependency on bad weather

In the study, 88% of the responding buyers/ merchandisers reported that their sales, particularly their advertised sales of sun care products, are highly dependent on the weather and can be adversely affected by the weather.

When retailers were asked in the sun care survey to prioritize what they think manufacturers should do to minimize this problem and keep sales in a growth mode, respondents gave the overwhelmingly highest priority to investing in more consumer education.

The more consumers understand about the year round threat of sun damage," the buyer for one southern-based chain told Drug Store News, "the less dependent we will be on weather related sales.

"This is definitely going to be one of this decade's strongest growth categories, but until it becomes a mature category like shampoos, we're going to have to continue to build the business through local market programs, and by fine tuning our mix so that we stay in stock on the brands and products most in demand."