Prepare for First-Aid Season

Supermarkets can take time now to evaluate their first-aid sets to maximize product movement during active summer months.

With the run-up to summer, health and beauty care retailers have time to access their readiness to sell first-aid products to a population likely to suffer minor injuries during active months and the back-to-school season.

“Retailers should be taking greater advantage of this seasonality, because I think first aid definitely is more top of mind for consumers, since they are more apt to be spending time outdoors,” says Gabriela Elani, home and personal care analyst at Chicago-based Mintel.

Mintel values the U.S. market for first-aid sales at $3.1 billion, according to the researcher’s latest report, published December 2013. Category growth is dependent on household need, which can be limited particularly during winter months.

Consumers stock first-aid items, which often don’t carry expiration dates, for a long time and buy products when in need. Shopper engagement at the shelf is a challenge. Therefore, product movement can be slow.

Tambra Martin, VP marketing, retail for Mundelein, Ill.-based Medline Industries Inc., which sells the Curad brand as well as private label, says the company’s research indicates that 58 percent of adults have purchased a first-aid product in the past six months, with the rest saying they’ve stocked up in the past and haven’t yet used up their supplies.

“It’s consistent year on year that households with kids buy more first-aid products than other household segments. There is a seasonality in sales and merchandising, but we have data that show cuts and scrapes happen constantly all year long,” notes Mikio Fujitsuka, senior brand manager, Band-Aid brand adhesive bandages for Johnson & Johnson, in New Brunswick, N.J.

Retailers can encourage consumers to be more prepared when on the go, and cater to the needs of aging consumers, who have a greater need for first aid, especially in the muscle/joint support device segment.

In the next five years, the 65- to 74-year-old age segment is expected to increase 21 percent, while the 75-and-older segment is expected to grow 12 percent.

Planogram Complexity

The category, which consists of a half-dozen subsegments ranging from bandages, body braces, supports and wraps, to antibacterial and anti-itch creams, lotions and ointments, can prove a daunting merchandising task for retailers.

The broad-spectrum category is mature. Product proliferation and the number of SKUs and facings can make shelf presentation tricky. Slotting odd-size items can produce a jumbled set.

“Manufacturers try to solve these problems by creating simple, arresting packaging so that brand blocks can help define the subcategories better,” says Amy Kasza, marketing communications director for Waukesha, Wis.-based Hamacher Resource Group, a research, marketing and category management firm specializing in consumer health care at retail.

According to Martin of Medline, “Nearly 40 percent of shoppers told us they rely only on what they see at the regular first-aid shelf to get information about brands, which highlights the need for in-store signage and information.”

Martin says reasons consumers select retailers specifically for first aid include a good selection, an easy-to-shop section and availability of brands that shoppers prefer.

Manufacturers have tried to counter slow product movement at the shelf by dropping count size of bandage boxes to help increase turns.

Price sensitivity remains an issue with consumers who are self-treating and trying to stretch their dollars.

“Consumers are predominantly shopping the category with price in mind, and they are going to purchase the least expensive products, regardless of whether they are branded or private label products,” observes Elani.

She notes that consumers don’t see a noticeable difference in product quality between well-known national brands and store brands for products like cotton balls/swabs and adhesive bandages.

Thus, private label is a force in the category, with a 39 percent market share across mass-market channels, according to Mintel.

This was evident on store visits to Big Y, Target and Duane Reade, a subsidiary of Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreen Co. Each retailer prominently slotted its private-brand equivalents next to leading brands.

Springfield, Mass.-based Big Y flagged its Top Care private label with compare and save tags next to Johnson & Johnson’s Band-Aid brand.

While Johnson & Johnson holds a leading 23 percent market share in the category, according to Mintel, its share is slowly being eroded by such retailers’ aggressive merchandising of store brands.

Minneapolis-based Target also prominently featured its up & up line in multiple facings, blocked next to leading brands. “Up & up packaging and pricing helps the line stand out on shelves,” notes Elani.

Target’s first-aid section is a destination with more than 30 linear feet. Wound care, positioned center aisle, displays leading brands, including up & up, in a pegged and slotted format, and the retailer has carved out a kids’ section of licensed-character bandages.

“We’ve seen more retailers creating specific children’s subsections within the first-aid set,” affirms Hamacher’s Kasza. “That helps clear up some of the complexity, because you don’t have adult plain bandages next to Dora the Explorer bandages.”

Kit Promotions

Target won recognition last year for revamping “Build Your Own First Aid Kit,” a campaign it has promoted with Johnson & Johnson since 2009.

Last year, Johnson & Johnson celebrated the 125th anniversary of the first-aid kit.

Target’s campaign, re-themed “Be Prepared Everywhere,” featured a first-aid bag with a complimentary mini travel case inside. An in-store display showcased the bag and Johnson & Johnson first-aid items. Shoppers could scan a QR code to get a checklist of first-aid items to stock up on for any occasion. The new campaign helped boost end cap sales 47 percent over prior-year results.

According to the latest sales statistics from Chicago-based Information Resources Inc., first-aid kit dollar sales are down 6.2 percent to $46.4 million across food, drug and mass-market channels for the 52 weeks ending Dec. 29, 2013.

“The trend over the past couple of years is [building] your own first-aid kits,” says Kasza, noting that retailers will offer a free inexpensive nylon zippered case as well as two to four discounted first-aid items. “The hope is you’ll buy more things to fill up that kit. It helps increase turns and it helps attract consumers to different brands than they might automatically be drawn to,” she explains.

Joe Green, Nexcare brand manager at 3M Consumer Brands, in St. Paul, Minn., points out that new technologies often developed by the professional health care industry are now making their way into first-aid products.

“We have an entire business focused on developing technical products for hospitals and clinics,” he says. “Our 3M Consumer Health Care business, through the Nexcare brand, is able to use these technologies for our first-aid tapes, dressings and bandages.”

Kasza sees wound care growing with products that treat scars. Wound care also can overlap with the diabetes category as it relates to foot sores and pressure-sensitive ulcers that can occur with the health condition, she says.

“What these products do is “allow consumers to self-treat more. It empowers the consumer to be able to make their health care decisions as they stand in-aisle,” she notes.

Kasza further believes it makes sense for supermarkets to reposition first aid as daily care rather than emergency care, by targeting moms as the “chief medical officers” of their families.

“It’s difficult for companies and retailers to make this category [first aid] top of mind for consumers.”
—Gabriela Elani, Mintel