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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014
and everything is organized cleanly
and inline—the RYO presentation
hits them right when they walk in the
door,” explains Stienecker.
The RYO merchandising philosophy
for Butt Hutt of America is to let
customers “see it, feel it and touch it,” as
Stienecker puts it, keeping the tobacco
at eye level and arranging brand families
together. At its Bowling Green, Ohio
store, this equates to 73 feet of slot wall
space. Just under that, the tubes and
accessories are merchandised in black
cabinets “to complement the walls and
floors—visually breaking them up,” he
says. “Like most tobacco stores, we are
dealing with small spaces, so I like the
open concept, whereby there are no
gondolas in the middle of the floor—
everything is lined up along the walls,
with the center of the store essentially
uncluttered.”
This
successful
merchandising
appeal was a direct result of Butt
Hut of America keeping ahead of
the RYO curve ball. It followed the
large machine business closely and let
“others test the waters first before we
jumped on the bandwagon,” according
to Stienecker. And indeed, four years
ago, the company bought six large
RYO machines and placed one in every
store. While they lasted, sales exceeded
expectations.
“We did extremely well with the
machines; it ended up being half of our
business at its peak,” Stienecker tells
Tobacco Business International
.
But as the company followed the
tobacco talk and headlines closely,
Stienecker made an educated guess
that the big machine business would
be short-lived. “Nine months before
the highway bill put the coffin nails in,
we were looking beyond the machines
and restructuring how we could keep
RYO evolving,” he says.
That’s where the remerchandising
