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Planning for Shoppers’ Impulse Snack Buys

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Your customers may shop impulsively when they are hungry, but you shouldn’t plan your impulse product offering on a whim.

You likely already sell individually packaged snacks, which Nielsen, a consumer data analytics company, reports is a $33 billion industry in the U.S.

People from nearly every household in the country buy single-serve snacks, and they are willing to pay extra for the convenience of grabbing their favorite granola bars and beef jerky at nongrocery stores, Nielsen’s 2017 research shows.

In addition, the data suggest that healthier snack options offer opportunities for sales growth.

Applied to Retail

Consider trends in snack foods when you set up impulse displays near the cash register, service counter, housewares or grilling products.

Nielsen’s research shows that healthy snacks have steadily grown in popularity for the past five years, with sales increases of 18.2 percent on products that don’t contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), 16.2 percent on items that are free from artificial colors and flavors and
11.3 percent on products with no or reduced sugar.

Try selling healthy alternatives to the typical selection of potato chips. A test run of those products at your store may reveal that your customers are willing contributors to recent surges in healthy snack sales.

About Kate Klein

Kate is profiles editor for Hardware Retailing magazine. She reports on news and industry events and writes about retailers' unique contributions to the independent home improvement sector. She graduated from Cedarville University in her home state of Ohio, where she earned a bachelor's degree in English and minored in creative writing. She loves being an aunt, teaching writing to kids, running, reading, farm living and, as Walt Whitman says, traveling the open road, “healthy, free, the world before me.”

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