“This past year proved that we must continuously innovate and offer new ways to connect, express, and celebrate with family and friends,” said Greg Sarley, SVP of merchandising revenue at Harry & David. In his role at the gourmet specialty food retailer, Sarley is responsible for driving topline revenue across all the company’s divisions.
Sarley will sit on the virtual panel Holiday Hangover: Specialty Food Edition during next week's Specialty Food Live!, along with Maren Trocki, director of dairy & frozen, The Fresh Market and Natalie King, chief sales marketing officer, Stonewall Kitchen. The trio will discuss the events of 2020, the most recent winter holiday season, and the future of the industry on Thursday, January 21 at 12 p.m. EST.
SFA News Daily spoke with Sarley about his experience with the holiday season and what advice he has for smaller specialty food retailers.
How did Harry & David prep for the 2020 holiday season?
The ramp up for peak periods, such as the busy holiday season, begins a year in advance, and at Harry & David our focus is on helping our customers create more meaningful and deeper connections with the important people in their lives.
With the ongoing health crisis, we developed a broad assortment of gifts that offer sentiments, such as “Happy Holidays,” “Happy Hanukkah,” and “Merry Christmas,” and customization options as customers looked to put their stamp on the gift. We bought into trending categories with our Harry & David Gourmet line including prepared meals and also ramped up our indulgent line of chocolates and desserts which remained popular choices. In addition, we hired approximately 6,000 seasonal workers across our headquarters in Medford, Oregon and our distribution center in Hebron, Ohio.
What is, in your opinion, the most unexpected or interesting trend to come out of the pandemic?
In the context of this pandemic, our business has continued to perform well as people have been increasingly turning to Harry & David to help them connect and express themselves, something that is more important than ever during the ongoing health crisis. With more people wanting to stay home, we are seeing strong demand for self-consumption items, such as those found within our Harry & David Gourmet collection—a growing category of our business, which was created for everyday entertaining and sharing. Additionally, as people were not able to be together and celebrate milestones, birthdays, and other special occasions, gift customization continued to be in high demand.
What advice would you give to smaller specialty retailers trying to survive during this challenging time?
Stay connected with your customers. Whether that is through social media or customer inquiries, it’s always important to engage and listen to what customers are sharing and what their experience was. Prioritize top sellers and ensure you are staying in stock of key items that drive sales. Use the 80/20 rule to ensure you are staying focused on 20 percent of the items that drive your business. Invest in building out your e-commerce operations. Customer behavior has changed, and it’s important to be prepared for this trend to continue going forward.
What do you think the future of specialty retail will look like?
Occasion gifting will remain strong as customers will continue to look for ways to connect with those that they cannot see often.
As we approach a new set of holidays including Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Mother’s Day, customers will continue to look for new experiences including virtual food driven events that they can enjoy from the comfort of home.
More information on Specialty Food Live!
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