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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014
paper the same size and weight and cut
as the tobacco, and they show them
how to load it,” Stienecker relays. “They
explain not to put too much tobacco
in, and essentially all of the tips to get
them rolling at home.”
Don’t be margin-hungry.
“To
survive in this business, we had to
lower our prices and our margins,” says
Stienecker.
Get the ad word out.
“We started
advertising the remerchandised RYO
in the local papers. We let people know
we’re still here, and this is what we’re
offering,” he adds.
All this tallied up to Butt Hut
of America rebuilding its RYO
in different form even before the
government bomb hit. “We were doing
the remodel at the end of the machine
era. We knew what it was coming to
and we wanted to stay one step ahead,”
explains Stienecker. “We considered
what strategy we would take if the
machines went away; we put a game
plan together.”
The chain also relied on the
customer service skills of its long-term
employees to get customers back into
its stores. “Sure, we thought ahead
with our marketing and merchandising
strategies, but it was our employees
who really brought the people back
into our stores,” Steinecker says. “Our
employees know everybody. They
know their names and they called all
of them, they know what each one
smokes, and they helped them switch
from the big machines to the little—
they walked them through the steps for
doing it at home. It is our employees
who ultimately retained our RYO
customers.”
still recouping
So did Butt Hut of America recoup
the RYO business it had when the
large machines were in play? Not quite:
