Easter: A golden opportunity

As we head into the latter half of the Easter season, you will no doubt have sold Creme Eggs, Mini Eggs and Malteaster Bunnies by the bucket load. Sunder Sandher of Londis Headington in Oxfordshire certainly has. “The impulse items are selling well,” he says. “We’ve been selling Mini Eggs since Christmas, and Creme Eggs at two for £1 since January. I’ve got a big hod of Malteaster Bunnies at both of my stores, too.” But while little Easter treats are a winner for c-stores, now is the time to bring out the big guns.

“We have our shell eggs up in February and give them 2m of shelf space,” says Raj Aggarwal of Londis Queens Drive in Wigston, Leicester. “Most people will try to go to the supermarket for eggs in the run-up to Easter, rather than buy them on a top-up shop. But if they can’t get what they want, then they’ll think ‘where did I see those eggs?’ and they’ll come back here to buy them.”

Ammo Bhdaal of Spar Auckley in Doncaster concurs that displaying shell eggs early is the key to success. “We’ve taken learnings from Christmas and made sure we put our Easter stock out early. We have a 3m wall area that we display our Easter range in once our Christmas stuff has been taken down. We have a cross-section of small, medium and premium shell eggs priced at £10 or £15. They don’t sell straight away; they are just there to raise awareness that we stock shell eggs.”

Rather than dedicate an entire fixture to shell eggs, Sunder prefers to make use of existing space. “By displaying shell eggs on my chillers early it shows customers that we stock shell eggs and doesn’t take up any shelf space.”

Gary Bilbrough of Nisa Toddington, Bedfordshire, also opts to spread out his shell egg offering. “I have 5m of chillers and 3m of shelving above the freezers and I stack eggs there so that people can see we have them - it’s really about raising awareness that we stock them,” he says. “We stock some medium-sized Cadbury and Mars shell eggs. But we also do a lot of specialised eggs, such as Green & Black’s and the giant Cadbury eggs that cost £10 or £11. We’ll make a 25% margin on them.”

Sunder is also able to sell luxury eggs. “I stock a few medium-sized eggs, but the bulk of my eggs are premium: Lindt and Thorntons eggs priced at £10, £15 and £20. They offer a point of difference from the competition, and whereas the medium-sized branded eggs don’t tend to sell until the last minute, the premium eggs and novelty Easter gifting items are bought in advance as people purchase them with someone special in mind, such as a partner or grandparent.”

Demand for luxury eggs is equally strong at Barns Green Village Stores in West Sussex. “We have some mid-range eggs for distress purchases,” says owner David Heritage, “but we’ll get more premium eggs, such as Green & Black’s and Thorntons, which are priced at about £8. Husbands and wives tend to buy them for each other.”

Thorntons commercial director Phil Sargison acknowledges the trend towards premium shell eggs. “As customers tire of promoted medium eggs, they are trading up into more giftworthy special eggs from more premium brands.” The firm is reintroducing the banoffee pie variant to its Dessert Eggs, along with new flavours fudge brownie & raspberry cheesecake (rrp £14.99). “These highly decorated eggs are beautiful to look at and add a point of difference,” he says.

Another firm boasting new premium lines for Easter 2014 is Kinnerton Confectionery, which is bringing well-known luxury ice cream brands to the shell egg market. The Magnum shell egg is priced at £8 and comes with three Magnum chocolate bars made using Rainforest Alliance-certified cocoa and Madagascan vanilla. Meanwhile, the Cornetto Egg (rrp £8) comes with four Cornetto vanilla chocolatey cones topped with toasted hazelnut sprinkles and milk chocolate drops.

Raj has certainly noticed his customers trading up their egg purchases and is stocking up on key premium brands this Easter. “I stock all the premium eggs, such as Ferrero, Thorntons and the Cadbury luxury eggs. They can cost anything up to £20 and you’re making up to between 15% and 20% margins. Men like to buy them for their wives.”

He is confident that they will sell following their runaway success last year. “By Good Friday, we had two bays of Easter eggs and were panicking we’d have them left over. But we sold every single one. I even ended up buying more from another store!”

Over at Wealdon Stores in Cuckfield, West Sussex, owner Janine Watts is more wary of being left with excess stock and prefers to wait till six weeks before Easter to display her shell eggs. “We don’t buy many shell eggs for fear of not selling them,” she says. “We buy them individually, rather than by the caseload. We won’t end up selling ours until Easter weekend, when people are making distress purchases.”

Nevertheless, she has still carved out a USP during Easter. “I try to stock items you won’t see in the supermarkets. Last year we had little tin buckets with eggs in from Costco, which sold well. Infinity Foods do a good premium range, too, so we’ll buy some items from them. It’s good to shop around and get something different.”

Unusual Easter gifts have caught David’s eye, too. “We always try to get different things, such as campervans with Easter eggs and bunny toys with an egg cup. Grandparents tend to buy the novelty items.”

Novelty items also hit the mark at Gary’s store. He claims that sales of Nestlé’s Smarties Hen House soared. “It did really well for us last year as it’s just something a bit different,” he says.

Sunder agrees that novelty items for kids are a good investment. “Last year I was selling some items for £10 each and the parents couldn’t get enough of them!”

One product that may capture retailers’ attention this year is the new Mini Milk shell egg (rrp £6) from Kinnerton Confectionery. Packaged in a novel ice cream van carton, the product contains four Mini Milk chocolate lollipops with whipped centres.

Thorntons’ kids’ range is also set to benefit from the trend towards novelty Easter goods for youngsters. “Our three children’s eggs - Bramble Bunny, Miss Flutterby and Footy Fanatic - make up 47% of all small egg sales in convenience,” says Sargison. “Thorntons’ small egg sales increased by 10%, while novelties increased by 32%, driven by novelty gifts which increased by more than 400% helped by 250g and 80g Bramble Bunnies.”

Building on the success of its themed small eggs, Thorntons is launching the Cupcake Egg and Scooter Egg, each retailing at £2.99, which will broaden the appeal of this category to young adults.

The firm also predicts that the larger milk and white novelty chocolate models from its new Harry Hopalot Easter bunny range (rrp £8) will be in demand. “Harry Hopalot will be supported by freestanding units bringing theatre and excitement to convenience stores,” says Sargison.

But Easter isn’t just a chocolate-selling opportunity, it’s also a chance to engage with your local community. David likes to use the occasion to create some in-store theatre while raising funds for a good cause. “We buy a big egg at the cash & carry for £50 and we raffle it for charity,” he says. “It creates a bit of interest in-store and people like it when we do charity work.”

Janine also carries out charity work in-store at Easter. “We run an Easter raffle to raise funds for The National Blind Children’s Society. They send us a cuddly bunny, which we’ll display on the counter,” she explains. “Customers then pay £1 to guess where the bunny came from and the winner wins the toy.”

At Nisa Local Toddington, Gary provides the local school with a big Easter egg to raffle off, and gives flowers to the local church. “The church hosts a daffodil festival so we’ll donate to that. They decorate the church with the flowers and then sell them after the service.” He also has some fun projects in mind for younger members of the community. “I’m planning to run a ‘decorate a boiled egg shell’ competition and an Easter bonnet competition for 2014.”

So if you want to fully embrace the season, why not offer a point of difference from the multiples by engaging with your community and sourcing novelty and premium products. Says Hancocks purchasing director Jonathan Summerley: “Supermarkets have continued to dominate the competitive mainstream egg market so it is left for savvy retailers to carve out their opportunities around this.”