by Megan Minnick, Purchasing Director
Usually, the articles that I write for this newsletter have a positive outlook. Sometimes I’m aiming to introduce you to one of our many incredible vendors, inform you about the good that we are collectively able to do through our purchases of Fair Trade or local goods, or give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of our departments or programs.
Regardless of my usually positive outlook, the ultimate purpose of this publication is to inform you, our Ownership, about the business that you own; and sometimes, a positive spin just isn’t truthful. This is one of those times.
Though there are some areas of our store that have flourished during the COVID-19 era, our General Merchandise departments are not among them. General Merchandise (or Gen Merch for short), is a department in our stores that includes most of the non-food items that we sell including bodycare products (lotions, soaps, cosmetics, deodorant, etc.) and wellness items (vitamins, herbs, protein powders, etc.). Second only to our Deli departments, our Gen Merch departments have been seeing a significant decline in sales dollars during the last eight months or so.
I sat down with our General Merchandise Category Manager, Angela Pohlman, to talk about why this is, and get her thoughts on the struggles that her department has had in the last year, and what lies ahead.
Q: How have the areas that you oversee fared in 2020?
A: It seems obvious to say that 2020 has been a rough year. It has been rough in so many ways, for so many of us. The natural beauty and supplements industry has suffered too, and Willy Street Co-op has been scrambling to make this work.
Q: What is the area that gives you the most concern?
A: Bodycare and beauty: products that are meant to be used on your body like shampoo, cosmetics, soaps, etc. These products have seen a sales decline for a few years now.
Much of this is due to how folks are shopping. There has been a significant rise in online shopping for this category. Many companies introduced a “Subscribe and Save” option if you order directly through them. And, of course, Amazon is always a factor.
This sales decline has only been exacerbated by COVID-19 and social distancing. We are not going out nearly as much as previous years, and when we do, half our face is covered. In our region, bodycare sales have essentially flattened, but in our stores we are seeing about a five percent decline in customer purchases compared to the year before.
Q: I know we carry a few local bodycare options, and we always seem to have new local bodycare companies looking to get their products on our shelves. How are they faring compared to the industry average?
A: We have always preferred to carry local bodycare products, but they are suffering a bit more than the rest. We have seen an average decline in sales of just over seven percent. This may be due to the fact that local bodycare products tend to be a bit more expensive than brands with larger distribution. It may also be the case that customers are less likely to try out new bodycare products right now. In the past, local vendors have been able to do live product sampling and demonstrations in our stores. With COVID-19, we aren’t able to do in-store sampling, so there isn’t a good way for local vendors to introduce themselves and their products to our customers.
Q: What about the Wellness category?
A: Wellness items are also seeing some of the online trends that bodycare has seen, but supplements are just as overwhelming to shop online as they are in the brick and mortar, so we see customers continue to come into the Co-op to find assistance and a human to talk to.
Q: CBD has seen explosive growth in the last few years. What is the current state of that market?
A: CBD has seen an intense amount of interest. We saw a dramatic increase in purchases of CBD in about mid-2018, and since then we have seen a dramatic decline of just over 30 percent compared to this time last year. We think this is partially because of the ubiquitous access of the product in every grocery store, gas station, etc.
We offer higher quality CBD products than many of these outlets, and we do still sell a good amount of CBD. It seems that the majority or our current CBD customers are folks who use CBD products regularly and know what works for them, not people buying it for the first time to try out like we were seeing in 2018.
Q: Are there certain areas of Wellness that are counterbalancing the diminishing purchases of CBD?
A: During COVID, we’ve seen folks spending their budgeted supplement dollars on immune supporting and stress supplements—focusing on their personal health.
Traditional immune supportive supplements such as elderberry, vitamin C, zinc, and others are seeing strong growth. That said, we have seen some supply issues with these items. With demand up everywhere for immune support supplements, supplies have at times been strained, and we’ve seen more out-of-stocks than we would normally expect.
Q: In your view, what does the future hold for the General Merchandise department at Willy Street Co-op?
I’m hopeful that things will bounce back to some degree after the COVID-19 crisis has subsided, but it seems likely that the trend toward purchasing bodycare and supplements online directly from manufacturers won’t go away entirely. For this reason, we are taking a hard look at our product selection particularly in bodycare. We are considering shrinking the number of products we offer, and the department as a whole.
Ultimately it will come down to the choices that our Owners and customers make. If products are selling, we will continue to offer them, but if they aren’t, we won’t be able to afford to keep them on our shelves.
