Fairy Co-Pack Partnership
Reacting to new PMP opportunities in Wholesale and Convenience
At DCS we have a co-packing team, able to repurpose and rework products to improve their suitability for specific customers. This includes creating new price-mark packs (PMPs) when manufacturers aren’t in a position to produce these themselves.
Fairy washing up liquids from P&G are amongst the best-selling products in the household, health and beauty category, and a strong range of entry-level PMPs have been available for the wholesale and convenience channel for a number of years. In 2020, the DCS and P&G teams jointly agreed there was an opportunity to offer a more premium variant to prompt customers to trade up, and grow the overall value of the category.
The COVID-19 pandemic drove a significant shift in consumers habits, with shoppers reaching for well-known household cleaning brands more than ever before. With more people preparing and eating meals at home, there was a huge increase in consumption of dish care products. Antibacterial products became front of mind, and Fairy Antibacterial was the fastest-growing washing up liquid variant in the market, with sales increasing by 124% YoY. Alongside this, people started shopping locally and supporting smaller businesses, and sales in convenience stores saw double-digit growth.
This presented a clear opportunity – a gap in the wholesale and convenience product range for a price-marked, high-performance, antibacterial washing up liquid.
Offering a PMP solution removes complexity and price ambiguity for both wholesalers and retailers, as well as giving shoppers confidence they are paying a fair price for the product. Shoppers say PMPs make life easy as they don’t need to ask the price, and 1 in 3 strongly agree that PMPs give them confidence they’re not being overcharged.
To bring the solution to life – a PMP version of Fairy Antibacterial 625ml – the DCS Commercial and Repack teams first worked together to reduce the standard case size from 16 to 8, creating a more manageable size and keener price point for cash and carry shoppers. A shrink-wrapped solution was chosen, due to its quick turnaround time and it offering good visibility of the product on shelf. Simultaneously, the DCS Design team created a clear label for the outside of the case.
The full project was delivered in four weeks, from concept through to final production, thanks to the support of P&G and the quick work of the DCS Repack, Commercial and Design teams. The fast turnaround time of products such as these gives the brand manufacturers the opportunity to trial new SKUs and evaluate the ROI quickly, accurately and transparently, as well as driving incremental sales.
The new product was launched in Dhamecha in early August, where the launch was supported with fantastic execution - website and brochure features to supplement front-of-depot display, using pallet wraps that were provided by P&G.
Feedback from trial customers was extremely positive, and the pack is now a permanent listing in Dhamecha, Parfetts and D.B Ramsden. It delivered incremental sales of £80,000 in the first 6 months, and is expected to return £140,000 in the first full 12-month period.
This was then accelerated by the pandemic outbreak, with shoppers becoming much more engaged in the category, scrutinising on-pack performance claims and gravitating to the trusted brands. At DCS, we were able to work closely with The Range’s team to improve their proposition both in store and online.
Total sales of household cleaning products grew by more than four times – from £260k in 2019 to £1.4m in 2020.
With cleaning being such an essential category in 2020, it was important that we created an open, collaborative partnership with the team at The Range. We worked together to ensure the right products were on shelf at the right time, supported with the right display activities in store to drive sales. The strategy was built around a core range of products, supported by range extensions that encouraged add-on sales and cross-shopping, to ensure as many shopper needs were covered as possible.