Own label ranges can really enhance your retail offer, commanding higher margins and increasing brand loyalty, as shown by a recent redesign of own label food and drink ranges at Chatsworth House which has had an impressive impact on commercial returns.
Multidisciplinary design studio 93FT worked with The Devonshire Group and Chatsworth House to re-design over 250 own label products and refresh the Farm Shop retail space. Nick Clark, Founder and Managing Director at 93FT shares some key learnings from the project, along with top tips for creating impactful own label ranges.
Own label ranges often deliver stronger returns for retailers through higher margins and enhanced brand loyalty. While they require upfront investment in development and marketing, the long-term gains can be substantial.
We’re pleased to share some valuable insights from our recent packaging design project and thanks to our client, The Devonshire Group and Chatsworth House, we’re able to share with you some positive impacts on return on investment.
Significant growth across key own label product lines underscores the impact of our retail and packaging strategy:
- Locally sourced ales, brewed just miles from the store, saw an increase of over 200%.
- Glass-bottled natural fruit juices experienced a 180% uplift in sales.
- Fine and luxury boxed chocolates surged by more than 170%.
- Chatsworth Estate honey, harvested from bees foraging on nearby heather moorlands, rose by a huge 160%, with other honey varieties up 75%.
This demonstrates that well designed, visually appealing food and drink product lines can represent a key source of revenue as part of the visitor experience. It allows visitors the opportunity to purchase something as a reminder of their experience, to enjoy at home or as a gift for family and friends.
Developing Your Own Ranges: Key Learnings
Thinking of developing a range of food and drink products as part of your organisation’s visitor experience? Here are eight practical takeaways from our work at Chatsworth Farm Shop to consider for your own organisation.
- Give own label products standout shelf appeal. Clear brand and packaging guidelines, developed with an expert design team, ensure consistency, saves time and costs, and help shoppers quickly recognise and trust your range—boosting sales. Remember, shoppers buy with their eyes!
- Consider making the title of each product larger than your brand name. A common mistake for organisations is to make their organisation brand name more prominent than the title of the food and drink they’re selling. Help shoppers identify quickly and easily what it is you’re selling, and what they might be interested in buying.
- Within a category of own label food and drink products consider a range of price points for every pocket. This helps to appeal to a wider audience and ensure there is something for everyone. For example – a fun entry product could be an oversized own label chocolate coin (£1.50), up to a 250g chocolate bar (£4.50) then to a box of fine chocolates (£9.50).
- Where possible, consider displaying core own label ranges across the organisation’s retail outlets. Depending on the scale of your retail estate, ensure that own label food and drink products can be made available to buy across different onsite retail outlets. For example, ensuring products in a Farm Shop setting can also be purchased as part of a Gift Shop experience as well as on an e-commerce platform such as Shopify.
- Identify which own label food and drink products could be positioned as a ‘giftable’ item. There are two advantages to this approach. One, investment in creating these products can be shared across multiple retail channels. Two, it creates an opportunity for visitors to purchase something special and more elevated as a gift for friends and family.
- Where possible work with local producers. Working with and providing a platform for local makers is a core tenet of Chatsworth’s strategy. But all brands can keep this in mind, and there can often be incredible makers and producers within a local mile radius of your organisation. This allows you to nurture local commercial relationships within your neighbourhood and support the local economy. This can also help reduce your organisation’s carbon footprint as part of a move to reduce carbon miles within your supply chain.
7. Feature a short but descriptive story that explains what makes your products so special. The story could be about a special ingredient, traditional ways of making or reinforcing the provenance of a specific place or region known for its quality. A short sentence on each product helps to give customers a reason to buy and feel good about it.
8. Make it easier for people to find and navigate directly to your product ranges.
As part of the new interior design for Chatsworth Farm Shop we proposed a reconfiguration of the store layout to improve the overall customer journey.
A simple wayfinding strategy was introduced to help customers shop by category for example Pantry / Deli / Fresh / Spirits etc. While more localised point of sale displays were added to call out specific products such as best sellers, promotional offers and seasonal products.
Special Member Offer from 93FT
93FT is a multidisciplinary design studio that specialises in helping organisations think creatively about their visitor experiences from concept to delivery. The studio works across three core specialisms; Brand Strategy, Websites (incl. Shopify ecommerce) and Retail Interior Design. With over 20 years of experience we’ve helped organisations of all shapes and sizes take a holistic approach to their digital and physical retail and visitor engagement projects, helping to optimise and enhance the experience.
We are pleased to offer Cultural Enterprises Members a free initial consultation. Our team will be happy to talk through your situation and needs, and discuss ways we can best support you.
Get in touch via our website or email nick.clark@93ft.com.
A thoroughly enjoyable article with lots of great advice on own-brand products. Met Nick this week at the Black Country Living Museum event run by ACE and he offered some invaluable advice on improving our promotion through our social media channels – we are on the way with our improved strategy Nick. Thank you.