Wild Oats Announces Marketing Program, New Sites

BOULDER, CO—Wild Oats Markets (OATS) announced five new retail locations in September and launched what it believes to be the first integrated marketing program in the natural foods retail industry.

OATS’ integrated marketing program, detailed at a one-day conference in Boulder, offers vendor-partners access to a wide variety of information culled from OATS’ new Wild Shopper customer-loyalty program and other sources and the opportunity to take advantage of electronic advertising through Wild Oats’ Web site. The program also allows vendors access to OATS’ category- and customer-management information via OATS’ new JDA register- and inventory-tracking system.

In return, vendors are being asked to commit 4% of their gross estimated 1998 product sales to Wild Oats, payable quarterly, in advance, with a 5% discount for advance payment of annual programs.

In the mass market, 13% of vendors’ sales go toward marketing and 7% go to vendor copromotion,” says Jay Robinson, Wild Oats’ director of database marketing.

According to Robinson, less than half of mainstream grocers are using so-called loyalty-marketing programs, and none of the marketing-partner programs Wild Oats is offering are currently offered by other natural foods retailers.

“At present, there is little category management in the industry, so we can take this opportunity to help shape it,” Robinson says. “We have made the technical investments to move toward a better understanding of both product movement and our customers.”

Response from vendors has been strong, according to Robinson.

“They see the value added,” he says.

According to one manufacturer present at the conference, meeting OATS’ marketing program requirements likely will be easier for supplement makers and personal care companies, because of their longer margins, than for food companies that typically deal with narrower margins.

OATS’ five new retail sites are set to open in Denver; Santa Fe, NM; Fort Collins, CO; Kansas City, MO; and Princeton, NJ.

“Two-thirds of our strategy going forward will be infilling existing market areas, and the other third will be breaking into new areas,” Wild Oats CEO Mike Gilliland told Natural Business. “I believe we will have a truly national presence by the end of 1998, with a toehold in the Northeast.”