| CONTENTS: |
FEATURE: Casual Tabletop Dishes Up Sales
GOURMET HINTS: Selling Casual Tabletop Trends
RETAILER PROFILE: Now You're Cooking
GOOD REP: Toward building a relationship with a manufacturer's rep. |
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| The tabletop business has been growing every year. |
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| STATS: What's Hot Now |
An informal survey of specialty retailers shows that various shades of green ( known under aliases like "Spring green" and "Vert") are considered the new neutrals in casual dinnerware.
Emile Henry's new green is one of casual tabletop's new hot neutrals. |
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| MERCHANDISING TIPS |
• Offer dinnerware open stock in a selection of unusual shapes, including squares and rectangles.
• Include a range of white dinnerware as well as an assortment of unique specialty patterns. |
-- Bob Coviello, president, Housewares and Tabletop International. |
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 "Good cooking goes hand-in-hand with fine dining," says Susan Corwin, vice president and show manager. "Launching The Casual Table reaffirms the Gourmet Housewares Show’s role as a resource for unique, well-designed tabletop," she added. |
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| HAVE FUN!! |
| Join the Gourmet Housewares Show in Orlando, Florida and check out the new Casual Table section for a wide range of creative tabletop products. |
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| The Gourmet Housewares Show kicks off May 8, 2007. For further information, go to: www.thegourmetshow.com. |
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| FEATURE: Casual Tabletop Dishes Up Sales |
Consumers are setting eclectic, rather than formal, tables these days, and are turning to gourmet specialty retailers for more unique dinnerware.
"Casual entertaining is on the upswing with young adults," says Janis Johnson, president of the Gourmet Catalog Co. buying group.
"Our store members have reported that brides-to-be spend hours making decisions about dinner plates and compatible salad and dessert plates in order to show their own personal style," Johnson adds.
That specialty retailers are on the cutting edge of the casual tabletop trend is thanks to the fact that kitchenware stores excel at merchandising a range of casual tabletop products, showing off serveware, cookware and dinnerware styles that work together on the table.
"Consumers want to buy dinnerware they can use every day and not have to put away for a formal occasion," says Alan Senior, general manager of Emile Henry, U.S.A., who adds the company’s dinnerware business is growing thanks to the success of the company's colorful oven-and-stovetop-safe cookware and serveware lines.
Consumers’ love of ethnic cooking has also given a boost to the casual tabletop trend, as an opportunity for cross merchandising. Such cookware typically moves from stove top to table. "Store owners can help customers with ideas that combine cookware with serveware suggestions, taking advantage of themes ranging from Paella to Tagine cooking," Johnson says. |
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| GOURMET HINTS: Selling Casual Tabletop Trends |
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For cooking schools think ethnic: Stock Moroccan Tagines and Spanish Paella pans that work in the oven and look great on the table. |
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Show customers how to mix up first courses like Gazpacho and then serve the end result in espresso cups or other unique dinnerware. |
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Present food in Asian-styled dishes for canapés. |
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- Janis Johnson, president, Gourmet Catalog Company. |
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| RETAILER PROFILE : Now You're Cooking |
 Mike Fear runs Now You’re Cooking, in Bath, Maine and he’s added to his casual tabletop business by expanding into another store that was adjacent to his location in Bath’s historic downtown.
The move let Fear add a wider assortment of wine and bar accessories as well as more dinnerware than he had previously carried, allowing him to better cross merchandise cookware and tabletop.
The new strategy has paid off in bridal registry. Fear has set up what he calls a "bridal window display" that takes advantage of the building’s impressive architecture, and offers brides a glimpse into their ideal kitchen: where high-end kitchen appliances are mixed with an assortment of casual tableware and serveware.
The tabletop match-up lets shoppers know that Now You’re Cooking is more than just a kitchenware store. "The dinnerware allows us to produce a theme window where a passerby can say, "Boy, they have everything in that store," Fear says. |
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| GOOD REP: Toward building a relationship with a manufacturer's representative |
Problem: "How do you buy tabletop products that are special for your store?"
K.C. Lapiana, owner, In The Kitchen, a 2,000-sq. feet store in upscale Wexford, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh.
"When my manufacturer’s rep comes in and says that my competitor has just bought 25 pieces of a product and their customers have gone nuts buying it, that’s the kiss of death for me for that product," Lapiana says. "My customers want something special, so why would I buy it?"
RETAILER’S ADVICE: Lapiana says manufacturers should make sure their representatives are able to advise competing retailers as to which products are unique to each individual retailer’s selling area. |
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WHAT ARE YOUR HOT TOPICS? If you’d like us to address your specific concerns, let us know? Contact Thyra Porter, editor, Gourmet 365. |
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