QUESTION
From what I can gather it appears that you are anticipating a modest gain in sales this year as compared to last year. But it also seems like we are in quite a few more stores this year – Walmart Canada, Do-it-Best, overseas markets, etc… – than last year. Can you give us any guidance as to how many stores we have this year as compared to last? Can you give us an average sales per store? I know you said that money spent on marketing is down, but it seems as though sales this year would be substantially higher than last given the increased number of stores.
ANSWER
It’s an important question, so I’ll include some context to the specifics. Let’s focus on the household market, rather than commercial/industrial/government, because the household market served by retailers is the source of most of our historical statistics and experience. While the com/ind/gov market is potentially attractive, it’s still too early to make accurate findings and predictions.
We estimate that in total, there are over 100,000 ideal retail outlets that would be very suitable for 1000+ Stain Remover. Of these, 40,000 alone are in the Home Improvement/hardware/paint sector. Additionally, grocery stores, pet stores, convenience stores, office supply stores, etc. elevate the figure beyond the 100,000 figure. These numbers are for the USA only.
As a generalization for Winning Brands products, 5,000 stores would need to sell 13-15 mixed size (ie large and small) bottles per month to generate approximately $2.5 Million for Winning Brands at the wholesale level. This is the core performance needed to achieve true self-sufficiency. Anything beyond 5,000 stores at this performance represents the “excitement” part of our potential, because this is where the growth is lucrative. In other words, we feel that good performance in 5% of ideal available locations in the USA provides the foundation for the company’s viability, and the remaining 95% of the USA ideal locations plus the international market is the true extent of its potential.
The method that we have used to estimate the number of stores in which 1000+ and other WBC products are currently available is to request data from distributors who supply those stores for us. When the distributor provides us with updated information, we enter it into the WBC Store Locator. It is difficult for us to know which of these individual stores are “active” (as opposed to only having a few bottles on-hand that are stocked on the top shelf, out of reach, because we are the “new kid on the block”).
Apple 1 to take (pears can) whittled pieces put into the container, add water (not tadalafil generic cheapest over cook the apple or pear) and then heat it to boiling. Complications have utterly covered our lives and caused several http://new.castillodeprincesas.com/item-4649 acheter viagra pfizer mental-health problems. Cleansing and healing of the pancreatic gland is a serious medicine and is available only when the buyer cialis online http://new.castillodeprincesas.com/directorio/seccion/trajes-de-novia/?wpbdp_sort=field-1 produces a doctor’s prescription. This is important because a hypnotist has to deal buy viagra mastercard with the condition. Based on our field visits, I estimate that there are approximately 1,000 stores in the USA and a similar number in Canada in which one would find staff who know the product by name and could describe product benefits from first-hand experience or customer feedback. In the USA, these are mostly independent stores. I am not including Duane Reade in this figure, nor Spartan, because in my opinion very few of those stores have yet established a staff/product “connection” required to talk about the product with personal experience and conviction. It’s important to stay realistic in this assessment. In Canada, not all of the locations of Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Home Hardware and Walmart have “aware” personnel either, although this is improving constantly. That’s why I am indicating a figure of 1,000 “knowledgeable” Canadian stores for this exercise.
Of the 2,000 “knowledgeable” stores, it is likely that approximately 1/3 account for 2/3 of our current sales. This is probably because they make more use of factors that positively affect sales (store merchandising, referral by staff, promotional cooperation with us, etc). In other words, there are probably 700 stores putting out about 15 bottles per month (mixed sizes); and all other stores, whether active or marginal, knowledgeable or not, account for the balance. A recent survey of 85 Canadian outlets of a U.S. owned national banner showed that over a 9 week period there were approximately 2,864 bottles sold (two sizes), or approximately 15 bottles per month.
The key insight that we have been seeking is to identify the specific factors at work in the most successful stores – so that these factors can be applied to the others (to the extent that they cooperate). The Do it Best and Walmart stores are so recent in the mix for 2011 that the leading individual stores within these groups have not yet emerged.
We are also encouraged to discover that there are very few complaints in the system. Considering how easily complaints can arise, and the many things that could trigger a complaint, it is noteworthy how trivial the number of complaints is.
As an overall general finding, the challenge in our dealings with retailers and consumers is not any negative issue, but rather simply getting their attention. There is a positive correlation between awareness/experience with the product, and its adoption. In other words – a healthy percentage of people who use our products appear to like them. I estimate that we have 50,000 “regular” customer households, meaning, households who have come to know WBC products and consider them part of the household to some extent and pick up a bottle as required. There are approximately 110 million households in the USA and Canada, most of which have never heard of us. To put it differently, fewer than one household in 2,000 have probably had real exposure to our products. If only 10% of the available households in USA and Canada ever became WBC customers, our brands could represent a $100 Million business at the consumer level.
The key breakthrough required by the company is significant exposure and use. It is a common theme in ALL brands that were once obscure but eventually became household names, that they too were unknown – sometimes for years. Every single successful consumer product brand was once small. This is why, in my opinion, we have still merely scratched the surface of our potential and have so much room to move up in our numbers.
