By Andy Young
The Liquor Marketing Group (LMG) has started the roll-out of redesigned cool rooms in its Bottlemart stores, making them more inviting and easier to navigate for consumers.
The new cool room at Bottlemart Maroubra
Having started the redesign at the Bottlemart store in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra, LMG is aiming to give more stores the new look, bright and open cold rooms.
Rob Lees, owner of the Maroubra Bottlemart store, told TheShout: “It’s a new approach to retailing. It’s convenience, but it’s got a big foot print and there is plenty of room to move in there. Cool rooms can be fairly intimidating places, most operators will end up storing their cardboard and junk in there, so they can end up as not great places for shoppers.
“They can be pretty dark as well, but these cool rooms now are so well lit and by having that, you can see it’s really clear. The temperature is still intimidating, but now they can get to the windows and get to terms with what is behind the glass and so they know where they are going when they go into the cool room.
“People want the right product, at the right temperature and in the right amount of time. That’s as simple as retailing can be. They see what they want and they can go straight to it.”
LMG’s general manager of merchandise and marketing, Damien Page, is understandably delighted with the new look cool rooms and with how much easier it makes the shopping experience for consumers.
“One of the things I really like,” Page told TheShout, “is that everything in the cool room is ticketed, the price tickets are up. That is still a challenge, because when a consumer walks into a cool room and they don’t know how much something is, that is a complete barrier straightaway. But here everything is priced, every shelf has got a ticket on it, it’s exactly the way you would want a cool room to work.
“It’s a model piece, it’s clean, it's clear, everything is ticketed, the cool room is shoppable, it’s perfect.”
Inside the new Bottlemart cool rooms
The new rooms also work in conjunction with new 10-pack display units which LMG started putting into its Bottlemart stores in February. With the 10-pack display on the shop floor and an “icy cold 10 packs” sign at the back of the cool room, it enables store owners to take advantage of the rise in popularity of the 10-pack.
Page added: “The 10-pack is becoming more popular because there are times when a four- or six-pack isn’t quite enough but a case is too much. Ten-pack sales are becoming a segment on their own, so we had to do something about it.”