UK Sales Head Talks to Nursery Industry Magazine
Damian Butler, Head of UK Sales, recently talked to Nursery Industry Magazine about the importance of a good working relationship between retailer and supplier:
“Tommee Tippee is currently the fastest growing baby accessories brand in the world and is a very successful brand here in the UK where Closer to Nature is driving the market growth.
Though grocery accounts for the majority of sales, Tommee Tippee still supports the independent trade with regular trade promotions (quarterly) designed to appeal to the consumer and to give the independents the ammunition to compete with the multiples.
Promotions with national accounts are focused on fewer/bigger/better with an increasing number of heavily advertised baby events among the major retailers and heavy discount deals among the national accounts that don't have Baby Events.
Promotions generally either encourage trial and raise brand awareness (pre-birth items such as Closer to Nature and the Tommee Tippee Nappy Wrapper help the consumer 'hook' into Tommee Tippee) or focus on multi-buys on core consumables to drive consumption.
Tommee Tippee offer support on many levels; off fixture displays, promotional POS, information leaflets etc - as well as offering the expertise of an experienced trade marketing team. They not only give merchandising support but have detailed data, sales information and market insights to help accounts make the most of their space and their deals. Collaboration on promotional forecasts ensure we have the correct forward stocks to maximise the promotions. Generally promotions are put forward by us and and agreed via the yearly Joint Business Plan with key accounts. It's a definite – and definitive – two way relationship, designed to help us both.”
See Nursery Industry Magazine, Dec 2008