Skin care companies step into foot care market

Drug Store News,  Dec 11, 1995  by Lisa I. Fried

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Foot care products are no longer being purchased exclusively by the OTC buyer.

In the past year and a half, several skin care companies have created cosmetics-oriented skin care products for the feet, and they're pitching them to both OTC and skin care buyers. There does not yet appear to be a consensus about the best way to merchandise these products, but in most cases, chains are squeezing them into the higher trafficked skin care section.

By including popular fragrances and moisturizing agents in these new products and positioning them as products to soothe and revitalize tired feet, some skin care manufacturers are trying to generate impulse purchases from women who shop for other skin care products. Others are targeting this group, as well as those consumers who head to the foot care section.

Visits to several drug chains revealed various merchandising strategies. Rite Aid merchandises this new crop of products for the feet as part of a brand story in both bath and skin.

The chain merchandises Freeman Cosmetics' Bare Foot line adjacent to Freeman's bath products in the bath section, and it merchandises Vaseline Intensive Care's Smooth Legs & Feet next to its other skin care products.

Walgreen merchandises Vaseline Intensive Care's foot SKU and B.F. Ascher & Company's Pretty Feet & Hands in the skin care section, while merchandising more therapeutic foot lotions, such as Dr. Scholl's Ultra Moisturizing Foot Cream and Wesby Products Soft Feet PM foot comfort cream in the foot care section.

In its store on East 53rd Street in Manhattan, Duane Reade has the Naturistics Foot Lotion in the hand and body area of the skin care section; several SKUs of the Freeman Barefoot line are merchandised adjacent to the Freeman Beautiful Skin line in the face area.

In the Duane Reade store in Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, both the Naturistics Foot Lotion and Freeman Herbal Foot Soak are merchandised on the third shelf of the foot care section, adjacent to antifungal powder and athlete's foot products.

"Every chain handles it differently," said Larry Freeman, chief executive officer of Freeman Cosmetics. "We would rather have the Bare Foot line next to body care lotions.

"We did a test with a major drug chain that put us in both the foot care and creams and lotions sections," he continued. "The chain set minimum unit levels for the test, and we sold slightly under the minimum units needed for the foot care section. In creams and lotions, we were a superstar."

Freeman also reports strong results when the product is merchandised in the sun care section.

B.F. Ascher, which purchased Pretty Feet & Hands in October 1994, is pushing chains to cross merchandise its product in both the foot and skin care sections. As of February 1995, according to Towne-Oller statistics, Pretty Feet & Hands ranked 58th out of 813 in hand and body preps, according to Chris Ascher, Ascher's national account/broker manager. In the foot grooming category, the product was the leading item. In odor/wet grooming soaks, the product ranked third out of 75 products, Ascher said.

The higher traffic associated with skin care section offers a great appeal, he said, but the opportunity to compete against a much smaller number of manufacturers in the foot care section is also advantageous.

The company is currently developing floor and counter displays for its products designed for placement in the skin care section.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning