Why Favorite Products Vanish From Store Shelves : Marketing: There are many reasons why products disappear--ranging from low shopper acceptance to changing consumer tastes, from new technology to corporate acquisitions.
Abracadabra, poof! Now you see it, now you don’t.
Almost as fast as magic, products come and go at the supermarket. It seems like a simple fact of shopping: Grow attached to a product and before long, it will vanish from the shelves.
Take the case of Marjorie Levine. The Laurel, Md., special-education teacher discovered Ocean Spray’s new carbonated fruit drink, “Splash,” last March and instantly became one of its loyal buyers.
Two months later she noticed it was on sale--a clearance sale, she ultimately learned. In June, she no longer could find it on her supermarket’s shelves.
“I was annoyed. I kept going to various grocery stores to see if they carried it. I couldn’t believe such a great product had disappeared,” she says.
Many Reasons
There are a host of reasons why products become extinct--ranging from low shopper acceptance to changing consumer tastes to new technology. Even the recent rash of corporate acquisitions has led to the demise of many popular products.
And frequently, as was the case with Splash, the product is merely a test to see how consumers respond. Introduced and tested, the product may never see daylight again.
Splash was introduced in the spring of 1988 in five cities around the country, only to be pulled a year later “to rework the flavors,” says John Lawlor, Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc.’s manager of public relations.
“The concept was well accepted, but consumers said the flavor combinations--particularly the ‘Peach ‘N Passion’--were not what they associated with Ocean Spray.” The company is planning to reintroduce a new version of Splash early next year--with more cranberry blends, of course.
In Record Numbers
Whatever the cause, marketing experts say items both old and new are being pulled off the shelves in record numbers.
“Products are coming and going from the supermarket much more rapidly than they did five years ago,” says Marlene Johnson, manager of product communication for Pillsbury Co.
The reason lies largely in the number of new products--more than 10,000--that are introduced annually. “In this day and age, with the physical constraints of shelf space, one item goes out for every item that goes in,” says supermarket consultant Willard Bishop.
“Generally, if it doesn’t sell,” it goes, says David Hackney, public relations manager for Campbell Soup Co.
Campbell recently dropped its gazpacho condensed soup because of low sales. Campbell thought the soup, which was introduced five years ago, would “lend itself well to the growing interest in Mexican and Spanish food,” Hackney explains. “But not enough people were buying it; people had a perception problem” with eating gazpacho that came in a can.
Distribution Problems Too
It was a distribution problem, however, that led to Campbell’s decision two years ago to halt production of its Fresh Chef line of refrigerated sauces, salads and soups.
Campbell shipped Fresh Chef the same way it sent its canned soups to the grocery stores. First, the product was sent to a supermarket warehouse; then it was trucked by the chain to a store’s back room, where Fresh Chef sat until it could be stocked in the refrigerated case. This process “could take as long as 30 days,” Hackney recalls. “And for a product that has only 40 days of shelf life, by the time it hit the shelf, it was so close to the expiration date consumers wouldn’t buy it.”
Although Campbell lost more than $20 million on Fresh Chef, the company today is again testing the fresh, refrigerated concept--complete with a new distribution system--on a more limited scale under the name Fresh Kitchens.
Competition also has led to the demise of many a popular product. Remember Chipwich, the upscale ice-cream sandwich wrapped between two chocolate-chip cookies? Introduced in 1981, it was an immediate hit--so much so that many other companies rushed to create rival adult-novelty ice-cream products, recalls Chipwich president Sam Metzger.
Unfortunately, Metzger adds, most of these companies were giant food manufacturers that not only could afford the large advertising campaigns, but could also offer large discounts to encourage supermarkets to carry their products. “We couldn’t afford it,” Metzger says.
Gradual Reappearance
So in 1984, Chipwich was dropped from the supermarkets, with the company’s targeting sales instead to restaurants, ballparks and small mom-and-pop stores. Only recently, under new agreements with supermarkets, has Chipwich begun gradually reappearing in grocery stores.
Ice-cream products in particular seem to come and go in rapid fashion, thanks to the rapidly changing tastes of the American consumer. “We are a fickle nation, and with our affluence we can afford to be,” says Ronald C. Curhan, professor of marketing at Boston University’s School of Management.
Last year’s explosion of frozen-fruit bars is a good example. It has all but fizzled as “consumers saturated themselves with the product, and their interest in the whole variety waned,” says Debby Schapiro, marketing manager of the International Ice Cream Assn. Now the freezer case is being inundated with “light” ice creams and frozen-yogurt products.
“Manufacturers of food products have a unique problem in terms of being able to predict a product’s success,” says Robert Kopp, assistant professor of marketing at Babson College.
“Consumers may try a product and repurchase it several times and then they become satiated with the product. The novelty wears off after several repeat purchases. In my own experience, I remember when I became very attached to Klondikes and Dove Bars. I made several repeat purchases. Finally I got satiated with that product class, and I haven’t bought them in months.”
Perhaps one reason why ice-cream products are so vulnerable is that they are a novelty, says Robert Wunderle, economist and vice president of Supermarkets General Corp. “One of the most common reasons why a product fails is that it’s a passing fashion or short-term novelty. If it becomes part of an integral part of the diet--like spaghetti, yogurt or chicken--its popularity won’t change.”
Just as too much competition can hurt business, so can too little competition. At least, that is what a trade source who didn’t want to be identified says caused the demise of Dannon Co.’s flavored yogurt drink, Dannup.
Launched in 1987 with big hopes that it would meet as much success in the United States as yogurt drinks have in Europe, Dannup was pulled off the market earlier this summer.
“Overall interest was not enough to sustain the brand,” explains company spokeswoman Barbara Beck. The chief problem, says Beck, was “getting customers to try it. Once they tried it, there was great interest.”
But it costs a great deal of money to get people to try a product--more than Dannon could afford, the trade source says. If only another one or two companies had made a competing product, the combined promotions may have gained wider consumer attention, prompting more people to try the drink.
Corporate acquisitions also have contributed to the disappearance of many products. One marketing expert fondly remembers Guido’s Italian Ice. “It was a very, very popular item in Chicago,” the expert recalls.
But the company that made Guido’s, Nutrafoods International, was acquired by the Coca-Cola Co. in 1985. Coke “did a little bit of tinkering” with Guido’s, which was a type of push-up Popsicle, a Coke spokesman said. It was ultimately reintroduced as “Minute-Maid Fruit Juicee.”
Went National
“We felt if we were going to go national with the product, we would do better with the name Minute Maid,” the Coke spokesman said. But the marketing expert recalls, “It wasn’t as good.”
Similarly, when Boboli Inc. was acquired by General Foods Corp. a little more than two years ago, the Boboli--a pre-baked pizza dough shell that could be embellished with toppings of the consumer’s choice--began to disappear from frozen-food cases around the country.
The reason, explains Boboli sales manager Hank Bradanini, was that General Foods wanted to “concentrate all our efforts” on delivering the product fresh, instead of frozen. “And obviously with one facility in California, we can’t ship fresh throughout the United States.”
For now, Boboli is selling its pizza crusts, which can be topped with fresh fruit as well as tomato sauce, in Northern California, Nevada and Arizona.
Changes in Technology
New technology also has played a hand in driving some products off the shelves. The advent of self-locking plastic bags, for example, “has made freezer paper hard to find,” says Anne Cockrell, consumer-affairs manager of Safeway Stores Inc.’s Washington division. Similarly, she adds, the large cans of fruit juices are being replaced by glass or refrigerated cartons.
On top of that, even best-selling products may disappear for reasons totally beyond anyone’s control.
Take Perdue Farms Inc.’s popular Perdue Done It! roasted chicken and chicken parts. A major fire at Perdue’s Bridgewater, Va., processing facility last September has kept that item off the market for nearly a year now.
Given all that can go wrong, it is mind-boggling to think how many age-old products remain on the shelves, notes Boston University’s Curhan:
“It’s amazing to me as I go into a store to still find a number of items that I can recall knowing growing up. You can still find Corn Flakes. You can still find Rice Krispies. You can still find Quaker Oats oatmeal. No matter how many new products come along, the successful products are still holding their own.”
