Confectionery wholesaler Bobby’s is targeting national expansion for its Apex service, designed to boost sales through improved merchandising and ranging of confectionery and snacks in stores.
Through recommend improvements to the category, either through remerchandising the existing layout or providing extra points of sale, the recommendations will be applied not just to Bobby’s products, but also those from rival suppliers.
Explaining growth plans for Apex, Bobby’s national Apex service manager Paul Kitt said: “We’ve got 20,000 customers, but we know we can do a lot more with them. Typically, a rep will walk in, provide the products and walk out the door. We wanted to look at what more we can do with retailers and that’s how we came up with the Apex service.
“Pretty much every customer we offered Apex to bit our hands off for it. It can be anything from one small shelf or 20 metres of full merchandising that we continue to do. We’ve now got a few dedicated people working on this.
“There are 1,300 customers we class as Apex customers, so we have a lot of work we do. We want to be doing more than just delivering boxes and we know we can.
Read more: Interview: Bobby’s Foods
“It’s a national service. We’re looking at a project to identify customers in Scotland and some of the more remote islands around the area. We want to offer the service to any single customer.
“We don’t just move other people’s products out of the way. Products will be merchandised properly, even our competitor lines. We will be mindful and respectful.”
Kitt said that a common challenge faced by retailers is time management. “Convenience stores are open so many hours in a day and they’ve got limited staff. A lot of services they offer, such as Post Office and PayPoint, can tie them up,” he said.
“Our Apex service helps give them the time back and we’ll go the whole hog. As long as the retailer is happy, we’ll do a full survey and move fixtures.”
Bobby’s is also making its service in partnership with Hubpix more widely available. The team’s reps will work with symbol groups to take pictures of fixtures and stands to examine compliance and ranging.
Explaining the benefit for retailers, Kitt told Better Retailing: “If we’ve made a promise for a certain amount of work or free stock, it gives retailers assurances we’ve done this.
“If a retailer isn’t in their shop because they’re on holiday or on a cash-and-carry visit, our reps can simply send them before-and-after photos through an app.”
