Heineken relaunches its Star Retailer scheme with more flexibility for convenience stores

Heineken is marking the fifth anniversary of its Star Retailer initiative by relaunching its website and making it more flexible for convenience retailers.

The scheme’s advice encourages retailers to stock 12 core Heineken products, such as Desperados three-packs, Heineken six-can packs and Foster’s four-can packs, as well as eight flexible choices like Sol, Red Stripe and John Smith’s.

Lee Fretwell, national field sales manager at Heineken, said: “A year ago, John Smith’s was a must stock, now it’s a flexible choice. These changes give retailers the opportunity to premiumise.”

Pankhaj Patel, owner of Londis Star Newsagents in Lewisham, London, has seen a sales increase of 15% by working with Heineken.

“The scheme is less stringent than it was before, which is good because you can’t always stock the lines. We never sold Birra Moretti before but now we sell three cases a week,” he said.

The website now contains a calendar with sports events like the Super Bowl, cultural events like Chinese New Year and Australia Day and events for food lovers, such as National Pizza Day or British Pie Week.

It also now has advice for tapping into shopping missions, offering retailers PoS to promote top-up shopping, as well as beer and cider pairing suggestions for evening meals.

The company has handed out £1.8m in rewards to retailers for following the principles since its launch in 2012.