BARRINGTON, Ill. -- Willard Bishop has been commissioned by John Middleton Inc., a major cigar manufacturer, to identify ways that retailers can generate incremental profits from cigars through more effective profit-building strategies. The results will be available to retailers in a Cigar Merchandising Guide.
According to Richard Fasanelli, vice president of marketing and sales at John Middleton Inc., the category's dynamics have limited the full potential of cigars. When you consider the regional nature of cigars, the competing strategies of the product [image-nocss] manufacturers, and the lack of any real consistent insights, it's clear that retailers could experience even stronger growth in cigars if they had a better base of information, he said concerning Willard Bishop's project.
According to ACNielsen, Cigar dollar sales in the convenience channel grew 14% in 2006; however, Fasanelli added, We continue to uncover additional growth opportunities with retail customers by applying strategies less common to cigars but very common in other major tobacco categories.
David Bishop, partner at Willard Bishop, said, When you have a segment of the business growing at these rates year over year, retailers are focused on maximizing its potential. And, whether this means pricing for volume, expanding assortments or increasing the visibility of the set, retailers will always need analytic and insights that enable them to successfully execute these strategies. The goal of this initiative is to provide retailers with new insights on how they can best manage the opportunity in the cigar category and support that with facts and figures. And, we'll accomplish this via an active dialogue with the trade and an in-depth assessment of the current retail business over the coming months.
Retailers will be able to access these new insights in a retail merchandising guide and in an interactive webcastboth of which are scheduled for the fall of 2007, the company said.
Royersford, Pa.-based John Middleton makes tobacco products including Black & Mild pipe-tobacco cigars, a popular five-pack cigar brand.
Willard Bishop, Barrington, Ill., is a consulting firm working with retail and foodservice companies to solve business problems and identify opportunities to drive profitable growth.
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