Nolan's Finest Foods

Nolans's Fine Foods What are the national trends in the shampoo category? The shampoo brand "Clean and Soft" leads the field in all the national food chain stores, according to Exhibit 6 data. Exhibit 1 shows that nationally, overall in the shampoo market, there is a dominance of brand names of shampoos as opposed to generics and store name brands. Thus, brand names dominate the overall national market at present and Exhibit 2 shows that food stores still dominate the shampoo market in terms of styles of stores.

Exhibit 3 shows the most growth in mass marketed shampoos, and also drug stores continue to make incursions into the shampoo market. Exhibit 4 reflects this, showing that the market dollar sales of food stores purveying shampoo are down. But Nolan's is declining at an even more precipitous rate. The competition of brands is relatively the same in this category for Nolan's as it is for the national market according to Exhibit 5 of the case study. "Clean and Soft" is the dominant market brand at Nolan's and at other food store chains.

Question 2: What are the differences between Nolan's and national trends? Nolan's best selling brand name is "Clean and Soft." It carries more of this brand than other brands, such as "First Impressions" and "Mane Tame," which are also good secondary sellers at other competing drug chains. The remaining competitors carry a greater variety of sizes of these products, though. (Exhibit 6) Nolan offers less variety of sizes and brands of all its shampoos, and consequently offers the consumers less choice, but more of the most popular brand.

In contrast, in terms of the lowest product sellers, Nolan's has not eliminated such duds as "Silky Style," which has a consistently narrow share of the market, 13 weeks ago and a year ago as well. (Exhibit 7) Nolan seems to have a number of slow sellers, however, rather than just one clear slow seller, despite its relative lack of variety of high sellers in comparison to its competitors.

Question3: What could be causing these differences? The diversity of mass marketing and to a lesser extent, the greater diversity of brands of shampoo at drug stores, have caused individuals to seek greater variety in their shampoo selections. They may desire more specific, luxury products, rather than simply seeking consistency and the best value for their purchasing dollar. Nolan's may have gained a reputation in the industry for providing little variety. This is why the store seems to have so many slow sellers.

People do not think of Nolan's as offering variety in shampoo selection. Thus, when they wish to buy something other than the leading brand "Clean and Soft" in the most commonly sold value size, they go elsewhere. This results, given other market trends, in sales going down at Nolan's. This also results in Nolan's selling fewer numbers of other.