​Focus On Personal Care & Toiletries: 31 October

Focus On Personal Care & Toiletries, by Ellis Hawthorne (ellis.hawthorne@thegrocer.co.uk)

Publishing: 31 October

Advertising deadline: 16 October

Download the synopsis

Submissions deadline: 9 Oct

The story

The supermarkets’ personal care & toiletries offers could do with some TLC. Sales are falling as competition from online retailers and brands’ direct-to-consumer platforms stiffens. As Covid-19 has driven more of us to shop online, what are the grocers doing to strengthen their positions in personal care?

Key themes

Market performance: This feature will be based on grocery sales figures for personal care items from Kantar and Nielsen. How has the market performed in the past year? Which retailers, retail channels are in growth and which are in decline? Why? How has the pandemic impacted sales?

The supermarkets online: What are the big four and other grocers doing to capitalise on the huge shift to shopping online, specific to personal care? And what are the big brands doing? Retailers such as Asda are trying to increase dwell time on online category pages. Could personal care benefit?

Oral healthcare: This sector continues to premiumise as brands make ever bolder claims about the ability of their toothpastes and brushes to give a dazzling smile and promote better oral health. In the US a number of mail order oral health subscription services are making waves. Will this take off here?

Are we letting ourselves go? Kantar said in spring that lockdown was going to cost the personal care category dearly because people are less likely to following grooming routines if they are working from home or not working at all. Has this prediction been realised?

DTC: The direct-to-consumer model has transformed the razors market. Where else in personal care is it making waves? What impact did Covid-19 have on DTC operators? Who are the biggest players in DTC personal care?

Amazon: This feature will explore the impact Amazon is having on traditional channels and what brands are doing to tap Amazon’s growth. Some brands’ Amazon store pages almost serve as secondary brand websites. Is this the future of personal care?

Sustainability & packaging: Online operators like Amazon are often lambasted for the amount of packaging they use. What are they doing to become more sustainable? For that matter, what are manufacturers doing to become more sustainable?

Innovations: we will profile four new products or ranges that have ideally not appeared in The Grocer before. We need launch date, rsp, and a hi-res picture of each.