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How you can promote and sell the Mini Watermelon

Are you a dealer or a department head and do you want to promote the mini watermelon in your point of sale? Contact us, we will give you the material required to do it! The positive marketing experiences carried out over these years, the results and suggestions for the sale of this watermelon.

The social changes in progress over the last ten years have convinced Cois’94 and Hazera Genetics to be the first to invest on the Mini Watermelon. In spite of the new social structure of the family units is already well-known to everybody (1/4 of the European families is formed by single people , 31.6% of the Italian families has got no children while 45.8% has got only one child, ISTAT data ), the economic conditions of the watermelon market which, year after year, is more and more stricken, have not facilitated the promotion of the Mini Watermelon among the operators of the sector that are not much inclined to carry out new investments.

The Mini Watermelon is drawing again a new role of the watermelon on the market thanks to the characteristics it owns. In fact, its small sizes lets everybody taste a refreshing slice of watermelon without bringing home necessarily 10-15 kg or without having recourse to a watermelon already cut. Certainly the small sized watermelon will never be likely to replace the traditional one, but it can open a new market, bringing closer several people that, otherwise, for different reasons, would not buy the traditional watermelon (too heavy and cumbersome). The market segment that might set up is considerable. At the moment, it is very difficult to venture an estimate of the potentialities, even if the data indicated at the beginning as to the new social structure outline a favourable picture for the success of this product. To this purpose, we can add a reflection that makes clear how wide the potential market share of the Mini Watermelon is: how often a day do we eat a meal with our consort/ partner? The field we are investigating is, in fact, particular since it is about the ”table”. The current working times force millions of people to have lunch far from their houses several times a week , thus the family is more and more reduced as to food consumptions at home, and this stimulates, in the meantime, the purchase of all the food products packaged in single doses .

Notwithstanding there are all the makings to create a new market, the initial promotion made at the growers and dealers have encountered with the disastrous economic conditions of the traditional watermelon market. Over the last years, in order to overcome all the operators’ perplexities, we have decided to carry out marketing trials into the great distribution necessary to collect concrete results as well as to confirm through them our good expectations. Firstly, we carried out productions that were sold in different parts of Italy , accompanied by a promotional campaign (posters, leaflets, labels to put on fruits, tasting, etc.) inside the points of sale. The results were surprising, not only for the prices obtained (up to 3,5 times the price of the traditional watermelon), but also for the enthusiasm shown by the people who bought this novelty that ,maybe, they had been waiting already for a long time.

Who buys the Mini Watermelon

From our experience, drawn by the assisted sales, it has been possible to note that, at the moment, the people who are mostly interested in the Mini Watermelon are the elderly people in general, women going shopping without their husbands (even they would like to, they cannot carry too heavy loads), children identifying the Mini Watermelon as a product suitable for them, or under certain circumstances, students, tourists, young couples, etc.

Why choose the Mini Watermelon

The observation of the purchase behaviour in the supermarket department is useful to understand if the presuppositions, we think can bring to the purchase of a commodity, are correct and help to understand a few interesting curiosities. A lot of people , after the purchase, have been interviewed on the reason why they were choosing the Mini Watermelon. Hereinafter we are referring the most common answers:

1. Practicalness
2. Not much satisfied with the traditional watermelon;
3. Curiosity;

It was also interesting to hear such expressions as “Look, there are the mini watermelons”, clearing up one of the doubts a lot of operators had shown at the beginning, being fearful they could be exchanged for rejected or second choice products. The perfect spherical shape as well a the product presentation with a label do not leave any doubt on the fruit goodness, a fact which has been verified also in the absence of the promoters, and in a few cases, of the advertising material too, as an evidence that the consumer is already ready for this novelty.

Guided sales

The guided sales allow to have the direct contact with the public and to collect several information that can improve the sale experience. From them, the following suggestions arouse:

1. To carry out tasting in order to clear up any doubts on the product goodness for all the consumers that could not appreciate it yet.
2. To be careful to differentiate on the shelf the watermelons “ with seeds” from the “seedless” ones, however without creating any confusion and competition among the typologies with different skin colour. Therefore, should only one type be marketed among the “seedless” watermelons and the ones “with seeds”, it is advisable to display fruit with the same skin colour. Instead, if on the shelf there are both types of Mini Watermelon (“with seeds ” and “seedless”), it is preferable to differentiate one from the other by having recourse to typologies with different skin colour.
3. In order to display them, we recommend not to leave the product on the bins used for harvesting. When the goods go far below the edge, they loose in attractiveness, besides if the bins are placed one upon the other, they can go out from the visual field of the buyers, in particular from the childrens’, that are very attracted by this product.

Sale by pieces

A very interesting kind of sale is the one carried out by single pieces already price-marked,this underlines not so much the importance of the price linked to the weight/quantity, but instead the availability to spend for the convenience. In fact, the consumer does not buy a small watermelon, but the Mini Watermelon. Obviously, there are several ways to carry out this kind of sale: using calibrating and pricing machines and/or enriching the product with charming packages either in cartoon or in plastic. In Spain, similar experiences have already been carried out successfully, but in Italy it has been shown that, at the moment, the use of adhesive labels linked to the display of custom-made posters as well as to this novelty are enough to attract several people. However , even if the use of the package is for sure charming and gives the watermelon much more the meaning of practicalness, we need to note that this involves several problems that should be studied and solved in advance: higher cost/fruit, higher attention towards the fruit disposal in the containers for the wholesale, higher displaying space necessary in the point of sale (should this be not enough , the department head would be obliged to carry out several travels in order to keep the display stand always full) and ,not least, the possibility that a few packages could get ruined, thus becoming less attractive and bring to the formation of a rejected product, that is not really like that!