Public Gaming International • July/August 2014
12
Finding a way to say
“Yes”
On data collection, consumer profiling, and
proving up our claims that Lottery is a profit
generator for our retail partners.
Kevin Gass, Vice President, Lottery Gaming, BCLC
(British Columbia):
We are good at sales reporting internally.
And we can tell the retailer the amount of sales at their location
and all those kinds of things. But the retailers already have most of
this information. What we are not doing is translating our data into
forms that are useful to the retailer. That’s a huge gap for us. When
we sit down with our key accounts, the 7-Elevens of the world,
they talk about basket size, driving incremental sales, segmenting
players in terms of buying patterns and the kinds of products ( in
our case, it’s lottery games) that appeal to specific demographic
profiles. The other CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) suppliers
are all talking the retailers’ language and we’re just not in that con-
versation. We need to be if we expect retailers to give attention to
the business of promoting and selling our products. We do not do a
good job of helping our retailers understand the lottery consumer,
how our products fit into their business model, how the lottery
category can be leveraged to drive sales of other products, etc. It is
a personal priority of mine for us to get there. I think that is a lost
opportunity to generate lottery incremental sales.
Mark Hagen, Category Manager – Services, 7-Eleven,
Inc.:
Thank you, Kevin. That’s correct. Our planning for any prod-
uct category starts with understanding the guest. We have informa-
tion on who purchases lottery from us, just like we do in all other
categories. But other CPG suppliers give us lots of information
about the consumer of their specific products. And together we
adjust the product and promotion mix to appeal to the particular
demographic of each individual store. The types of games in the
stores should be an assortment that appeals most to that specific
store’s demographic profile. 7-Eleven has more than 7,600 stores
in the U.S. alone with different demographics. So by definition,
the assortment of games should not be the same in each store. You
should be capturing and sharing more information with us so that
together we can make sure we are offering the assortment of games
that will optimize the sales potential for each store. Information
about how the demographic profiles differ by product and price
would help us to tailor the product mix of each store to the con-
sumers who frequent that store.
I would also like to compliment May Scheve on your presenta-
tion because it may be the first time I’ve heard a lottery talk about
the guest, the consumer.
Kevin Gass:
Retailers ask us why they should carry our prod-
Retailers are the face of the Lottery to the consumer, and thankfully they are committed
to the success of Lottery. Commercial Retail Executives from major chain stores discuss
what Lottery can do to earn this commitment and improve sales by engaging the full sup-
port of their Retail partners.
Following are some of the topics as addressed by panelists at PGRI Smart-Tech in New
York City. The video-recorded panel discussions can be viewed at
.
… to Retail Optimization
Building standardizing report formatting and
longer lead-times for our Retail Partners to
better engage with Lottery’s promotional
action-plans
Why the lines of communication require such
a long lead-time
Could the request for standardized reporting
formats turn into a requirement?
Getting more involved in the strategic
planning processes of our retail partners.
Integrating the internet into the sales,
marketing and promotional agenda
The Corporate Retailers’ View on “Ask for
the Order”
Exceeding Plan by Focusing on Execution
Cross-Promotional and Couponing with
Corporate Retailers
On Store Visits from LSR’s
(Lottery Service Representatives)
