Here is same store year on year data looking at candle and fragrance sales for April 2020 versus 2019 in 13 different newsagency businesses. City and country are in the mix. High street situation mainly.
The surge in sales of candles makes sense given the growth in sales of Home and Living category titles.
The growth had no location or business size limits. That’s code for anyone can grab candle and fragrance revenue growth for your business.
Now, to qualify my claim that anyone can do this … candles and fragrances work when pitched with context. Context can be in the form of a broader range of products, product knowledge, local sourcing and more.
Products put out without context tend to not work.
Yes, success in retail takes work.
As you can see from the first store in the list – they were already well established in this category. That said, I’d not complain about the 2% growth as in their specific situation, with shopping centre challenges, this category did well for them in a tough month.
What any retailer can sell beyond what they usually sell can restricted by what is thought to be possible.
Home fragrances enjoyed near perfect conditions in the last quarter. It is traditionally a good sales period as cooler weather focusses people on being indoors. This builds towards mother’s day and this year the lockdown and easing of in time for mother’s day weekend accentuated the underlying sales strength in March to May.
Beware diving in now. Going through winter totally changes these dynamics and fragrances that sell now will not sell as summer starts.
Finally, brand is everything. Make sure you match it to your customer demographic.