Growing revenue 11% in a shrinking market.
At Perfect Fit, one of the leading pillow suppliers to Walmart, Target and Bed Bath & Beyond, revenue grew 11% while U.S. household spending on home textiles fell.
Kara Lineal built the assortments, packaging and fabric-technology stories that sold those programs in to buyers, led the national ad shoots for Jockey's bedding launch, and led merchandising for the direct-to-consumer launch. Earlier, at InGEAR, she designed product and packaging for retailers' own private label brands at Walmart, Target and Kohl's.
Perfect Fit Industries | Creative Marketing Manager | 2005 to 2008
InGEAR Corporation | Product Designer | 2003 to 2005
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Perfect Fit revenue growth while U.S. home textile spending fell
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first-year sales, Therapedic at Bed Bath & Beyond (Perfect Fit)
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annual sales, Walmart luggage value sets (category captain, InGEAR)
Challenge
Bedding and luggage sell in mass retail aisles full of near-identical products. Many products look alike, shoppers compare prices, and retailers control limited shelf space.
At Perfect Fit, the job was to grow while the market shrank: U.S. household spending on home textiles fell 18% from its 2006 peak to 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey. At InGEAR, the job was to hold shelf position at Walmart, Target, Kmart and Kohl's against a dozen suppliers offering similar bags.
What she did
At Perfect Fit, a leading bedding manufacturer:
Plan the assortment around the shopper.
For each retailer, Lineal evaluated the SKU assortment, packaging and merchandising plan and developed the presentation for the buyer. The plan methodology: every item sorted by shopper type and price tier, from the shopper buying on price, to the one trading up, to the one paying for premium, so each price point had a reason to be on the shelf.Sell the feature a shopper cannot see.
Fabric treatments such as Nano-Tex nanotechnology, Scotchgard, Stainmaster and Crypton were new to bedding, and none visible on a shelf. Lineal wrote the marketing stories and designed the packaging that explained what each treatment did, at the point of sale.Launch a known brand into a new category.
She led the photo shoots for the national advertising behind Jockey's launch into bedding, sold at Walmart and Kohl's. The Jockey Spa line went into JCPenney and Belk. She led the packaging and product design for C9 by Champion, sold at Target.Fill the gaps competitors left.
Therapedic Sleep Solutions was refreshed at Bed Bath & Beyond as more than 50 retailer-exclusive SKUs, so shoppers could not price-compare across stores, which protected retailer margin and reduced channel conflict. Perfect Fit for the Cure was a co-marketing program timed to October, when mass retailers put their own breast cancer awareness resources behind the shelf.Go direct.
She led merchandising and was one of the marketing leads for Perfect Fit's direct-to-consumer launch, selling the same products the company supplied to retailers.
“You can’t see a stain-resistant finish on a shelf. If the package can’t explain it in the few seconds it takes to walk past, the technology doesn’t exist to the shopper.”
At InGEAR, a leading sport bag, luggage and cooler manufacturer:
Plan the assortment around the shopper.
InGEAR's January 2005 luggage line review for Embark, Target's own luggage brand, was organized by shopper, not by SKU: Family Fun, Smart Traveler, Modern Enthusiast and Shine On, each with its own value sets, materials and color story.Build the retailer's brand as carefully as your own.
Much of the work carried the retailer's name: Embark luggage for Target, Protégé value sets and Ozark Trail sport bags for Walmart, Sonoma sport bags for Kohl's. Alongside it ran licensed lines for Champion, C9, Spalding, Hummer, Eddie Bauer and Coleman. Lineal designed product, packaging, placards and floor displays for about a dozen retailers. Her employer served as Walmart's luggage category captain, the vendor a retailer names to advise on the whole category, and she developed the packaging template Walmart adopted as its private-label standard for every luggage supplier. A sport bag packaging structure she launched became a new standard at Target and Kohl's.She also ran monthly design department meetings, sending designers and marketers into retailer and competitor stores every month to shop the category before developing for it.
What happened
At Perfect Fit, revenue grew 11% while household spending on home textiles fell. Two launches carried it: Jockey Spa reached $7M in first-year sales across JCPenney and Belk, and Therapedic reached $20M in first-year sales at Bed Bath & Beyond.
At InGEAR, the Walmart luggage value sets carried $25M in annual sales. The packaging template became Walmart's private-label standard for all luggage suppliers, and the sport bag structure Target and Kohl's adopted reached $10M in first-year sales.
Walmart named the category captain. Target and Kohl's adopted the standards. Target and Walmart put their own brand names on the product.
“What brands now buy as retail media, we earned with the product, package and plan. Before you pay for placement, ask whether the problem is one media can fix. Often it’s the shelf.”
Why it worked
Shelf space was won through the assortment, the product, and the packaging. The same holds on the digital shelf, the retailer's own search results and product pages, where assortment and product content decide the sale the way endcaps and packaging did in the aisle, and where retailers' own brands are a vendor's toughest competitor.
The challenge is much the same: explain a fabric treatment in three seconds on a package, or make its value clear within one scroll of a product page.
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