Christmas Soft Drinks: Splash out

The message from the big soft drinks suppliers is always the same at this time of year: shoppers trade up to more premium lines.

But that ‘trading up’ means different things to different retailers. For Kay Patel, who has four Best-One stores in East London, it’s shoppers trading up from Best-in mixers to Schweppes while for Yogi Tatla of Londis Bracknell and Phil Bushnell, manager of Budgens Mortimer, near Reading, it’s trading up in size - to bigger bottles and multipacks.

Britvic commercial director (impulse) Nigel Paine, says that in the lead up to and throughout the festive season, people are often willing to spend on affordable luxuries and many are looking for that extra special treat to add a bit of sparkle to their in-home socialising - and that sparkle can come from soft drinks.

Paine homes in on the big sales opportunity. “One-quarter of beer, wine and spirits shoppers are already buying premium soft drinks encouraging a further 10% of these shoppers to pick up an adult soft drink could mean £2m more for the soft drinks market,” he points out.

“The festive season is a really important time of year for the convenience channel for top-up shopping, so activity should focus on top-up packs, and those purchased to fulfil distress purchases or deferred sharing opportunities.

“Shoppers are looking for larger packs for events and expect soft drinks for sharing. According to Nielsen data, December is the biggest month for multipacks sales in impulse,” he adds.

He also points to Britvic research which found that 56% of consumers are perfectly happy to drink soft drinks when socialising, regardless of what others are doing.

There is a trading-up pattern for Kay in his four stores. He says that while at other times of year his customers are happy to mix their alcoholic drinks with Jucee or Best-in lines, at Christmas/New Year they want Schweppes. “They’d rather put Schweppes out for their guests than Best-One brands. We stock lots of cordials: mint, blackcurrant and orange. We carry Roses lime cordial throughout the year, but at Christmas time sell loads more.”

His customers also trade up to bigger bottles. “They’re not interested in the 1.5ltr bottles of Coke at Christmas time they want the 2ltrs, especially if they are on a ‘two for’ deal,” he says.

Kay adds that Shloer is a good seller all year round, but surprisingly J20 glitter berry did not do well last Christmas it didn’t sell until summertime.

In a canny move, he is running a special offer for the first time this year giving consumers a free bottle of mixer with every 70cl bottle of spirits they buy.

“I’d noticed that nobody does link deals with spirits so I thought I’d give it a try. I’ll be giving away a 2ltr bottle of fizz. It’ll be either Coke and Sprite or Pepsi and 7Up - whichever comes in cheaper - but I am expecting deep-cut offers from Bestway. I’ll monitor the epos and if it pays off, I’ll do it again.”

But Neil McRobbie, who has three stores in Newtownards, Northern Ireland, is sceptical about the whole ‘trading up’ theory: “There are always promotions on the major brands at Christmas, which makes me laugh really as these are the brands that would sell anyway. It’s one of those self-fulfilling prophecies that forces the market - the price cuts on the big brands mean they are as cheap as the own label or cheaper brands so no one touches those. It’s the shopper who’s the winner - not us.”

As such, he’s expecting deep cuts on Coke and Pepsi and also Club Orange, which is popular in Northern Ireland.

Says Neil: “Shloer is a big Christmas dinner drink over here and it’s always on promotion. We’ll also have Red Bull on promotion - a four-pack for £3.49.”

For Yogi in Bracknell, it’s bigger bottles rather than multipacks of cans that he expects to sell well. “Coke is a big seller all year round, but the Christmas packaging definitely helps sales,” he says.

His Christmas display will include a bay of promotional drinks. “It’ll be full of 2ltr soft drinks because although shoppers may not have not come in specifically for them, when they see them they’ll buy them.”

As for mixers, he says both Schweppes and Londis Supervalu lines sell well. “Sales of soda water and slimline tonic go right up, as does lime cordial. And Schweppes blackcurrant cordial is trendy for cocktails, as is the giant 2ltr Rubicon mango which is popular as a mixer with vodka.”

Phil in Mortimer says his customers will be after bigger bottles and multpacks. “We sell six-packs of Coke all year round, but if we can get the 12s, they’ll fly out. Customers also leave the 1.5ltrs and go for 2ltr instead over Christmas.”

His store stocks J20, Shloer and Roses lime juice cordial all year round. “The Roses ticks along nicely throughout the year, then at Christmas we sell two or three cases a week. I think it’s one of those things where people check their drinks’ cabinet, see the lime has gone a funny colour, so put it on their shopping list.”

He says there’s a spike in sales of tomato juice, too. “Three or four years ago people were happy buying ambient pineapple and orange juice as mixers, but now most shoppers want fresh.”

Phil expects consumers to use his store much more between Christmas and New Year for their top-up shopping - particularly for alcohol and soft drinks such as dry ginger ale and tonic.

Finally, Amanda Grabham, head of brand marketing for Shloer, says retailers should consider the day of the week that Christmas Day falls on, as this can have a big impact on sales patterns.

“This year, Christmas Day falls on a Wednesday, so the sales surge is likely to swell between the Friday and Christmas Eve on the Tuesday,” she explains. “With there being a weekend between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, consumers are likely to extend their socialising to over the mid-festivities weekend as well as at Christmas and New Year, so it should be a bit of a triple whammy, and c-store retailers will need to carefully manage their stock levels to cover this expected uplift in sales.”