OPINION: Make your customers take a fresh look at your range

Nisa is incredibly passionate about its Heritage own label range and believes it stands up against that of any big grocer. So at a meeting with marketing director Ian Bishop a few months ago, we challenged him to put it to the test.

In this week’s issue you can see what happened when we sent a family and a foodie a typical weekly basket of goods, all from the Heritage range, and asked them to live off it for a week.

As well as being a bit of fun, our experiment is important for a number of reasons. Our family and foodie typically buy their groceries in big supermarkets, discounters and delis, where they believe they can get the best mix of value and quality.

Neither thought they could get this from their local convenience store and were surprised by the results. Many of your current and future customers are probably in the same position.

Meanwhile, those who do know what is available from their local shop believe they must pay a premium for it. I often hear the generalisation that convenience stores are more expensive than supermarkets.

However, I picked 10 lines from the basket we sent our family and foodie and compared the prices with Tesco equivalents. Three were cheaper, five were the same and two were more expensive.

It’s possible to get your customers to take a fresh look at your range by talking to them about new lines and holding tastings to build excitement

It’s possible to get your customers to take a fresh look at your range by talking to them about new lines and holding tasting to build excitement.

But first it could be worth taking a fresh look at the own label range available from your wholesaler. Most groups are investing heavily in creating products that shoppers want to buy and are rightly proud of how they stack up.