A strong team for the soft drinks demand
Winner: Premier @ DUSA
Best Soft Drinks Retailer of the Year supported by Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
Interview with Moira Dean, retail operations manager, and Kieran Hoskins, retail supervisor
STUDENTS are at the forefront of consumer trends, directly linked in to social media channels and seeing the latest and most tempting products on shelves through their phones.
And many new TikTok videos bring a new desire for the latest soft drinks, especially when it comes to the energy sector, so it becomes massively important to be able to meet this demand across all of convenience.
However, when said student population is right on your doorstep looking for all of these on-trend products and more from soft drinks, there has to be some extra planning in mind to keep them satisfied.
That’s the task that the team at Premier @ DUSA on Dundee University campus is more than ready to tackle, with an expansive range of soft drinks that can cover the late night study session, a lunchtime pick-me-up or Freshers’ Week party demands from the students.
This wide range covers the likes of single-serve options from the chillers, including 500ml bottles, 330ml cans as well as 500ml cans of energy drinks such as Monster.
Further to this, the team caters for the night in opportunity with its larger bottles, which are dotted in aisles across the store, bringing attention to the range right across the floor.
When it comes to making sure this range stays attractive for customers coming in the door, Moira Dean, retail operations manager at Premier @ DUSA, said it’s all about catering to this key demographic.
She said: “We’ve got a really unique demographic in our shop of students and young people so we need to know what they will be looking for in store.
“At the moment, that means we’re stocking up on plenty of Monster and sugar-free drinks and sugar free is huge for us, over half of our drink sales come from such variants.
“But with about 95% of our customers being students, we can’t deny that our top seller is Monster, without a doubt.
“When we looked at sales for the university year from August, we had sold about 26,000 cans of Monster, with 13,000 of this coming from the sugar-free Monster variants.”
Staying on top of this throughout the student year is no small feat but Moira believes that a lot of this hard graft comes from her team and, in particular, the store’s retail supervisor Kieran Hoskins, who takes a keen interest in the category to ensure it is a strong seller in the store.
Kieran said: “What we try to do with this store is just have everything that’s always in demand with the students.
“You can hear bits of conversations when people say, ‘Oh, they don’t have that in.’ So we always encourage staff to talk to customers and ask if we can source a new drink for them if they’re looking for it.
“From that, we can learn as well. We build a more specific range from the student recommendations but, most of the time, its the sugar-free drinks that keep moving for us.”
Catering to the most switched-on demographic when it come to new products continues to be a challenge in retail but Premier @ DUSA displays a willingness to not only match this demand but to learn from its customers.
This impressed Scottish Grocer judges and saw the Dundee store pick up its second award of the Scottish Grocer Awards 2023 as the Best Soft Drinks Retailer of the Year.
A shining example of how the store adapts to the local demographic is in its approach to trending soft drinks products, such as the launch of Monster Energy Juiced Bad Apple, which came out towards the start of the year.
Kieran said: “When Monster Bad Apple first came in, it flew off the shelf and it’s still going at the moment.
“We brought in cases and cases of it to help keep up with demand but we have been seeing consumers shifting back to the normal trend, which is with Monster Ultra White and the Peach, which both have to be our biggest sellers.
“But that initial excitement is so important for Monster, and energy drinks as a whole. It makes a difference when customers come in asking for it and we can then bring in some cases by the start of next week.”
And Kieran stays well on top of the latest product trends and launches right across the category, with the store stocked up with the likes of Coca-Cola Lemon, both in Original Taste and Zero Sugar, Pepsi Electric and Tango Ice Blast bottles.
Continuing to match to the trend, the store also boasts a strong selection of sugar-free products across the soft drinks range, something that Moira isn’t shy to shout out about as well.
She said: “We make sure that if there is a zero-sugar option then we get it in. Health is such an important part of our store, not only because it does well, but because it’s important to encourage with our customers as well.
“We’ll use Instagram and other social media channels to shout out about these products, including the university socials as well.
“And we have a very good working relationship with the wholesaler Epicurium, who send us a load of sustainable drinks to try out in the store. We see things like Huel drinks coming in and Fhirst drinks and they’re really popular with the kids coming in.
“They know the brands, so they know they can trust them and Epicurium are great to us, too. They’ll send us a box of products to try out in store and if they work, we let them know and start ordering more with them and it’s all healthy and sustainable stuff. So we want to push them forward in the store as well.”
Now the store is gearing up for the next university year, hopeful for a brand new influx of students to be introduced to the range in store and eager to welcome back some familiar faces that have become regulars over the course of their degrees.
It’s a tough job but one that Moira knows her team are more than equipped to handle, with plans in place to ensure that students coming from abroad can feel right at home in a new country they have never been in before.
Moira said: “I really have to credit the whole team on this one, they are all so proud of the section in store and it’s a power of work to stay on top of throughout the year.
“Kieran takes such a special interest in the section and that really shows right across the store floor but there’s not one person here that doesn’t have a part to play in what we do and how we do it.
“We all know we can have an open discussion about the section, work together as a team and ensure it’s a success for us and for the customers we serve every day.”
