As ever, price and promotion is an emotive subject - it's often hard to be objective about it. But that's what we try to be, having the benefit of thousands of shopper interviews and opinions, to fall back on. HIM's Cash & Carry Retailer Tracking programme speaks to 2,500 independent retailers each year while they are shopping in cash and carries throughout the UK.

HIM does believe that price and promotions are important - but keen prices and excessive promotional activity do not make up for poor standards, service, range, offer and convenience. Would fewer, more impactful promotions be more (or equally) effective, producing the same (or better) return?

With all the effort and time spent on negotiation and agreeing and implementing promotions, is this justified?

Only 31% of independent retailers say promotions are one of their three key drivers when shopping in C&Cs and nearly half of all retailers shopping in a cash and carry at any particular time will buy items which are on promotion. Promotion penetration is reasonably high. Suppliers will be relieved to hear that 50% more retailers are passing on savings made from promotions to their customers today, compared to a few years back.

Promotion penetration is increasing year on year. Is this because there are more items on promotion then ever before or are retailers doing more bargain hunting in a bid to increase their turnover?

Half of retailers buy items on promotion during their visit to the cash and carry - with five promoted items purchased per trip on average. Eighty per cent of retailers said the availability of promotion lines was good (14% "didn't know" - but half of retailers didn't buy anything on promotion so it is understandable they wouldn't have an opinion) - adding further credence that product availability in cash and carries is better than retailers believe it to be.

What is also interesting is that two-thirds of retailers said they bought a price-marked pack "here today" (only 50% said they bought products which were on promotion so clearly some retailers do not view a price-marked pack as a promotion).

Retailers say they sell a dozen products which are price marked in their store at any one time, and retailers increasingly accept price marking as an effective way of promoting a value proposition to their shoppers. It wasn't many years ago that the majority of retailers were against price marking.

Independent retailers have on average 22 products on promotion in their store with 66% buying products with a price-mark outer. Seventy per cent of independent retailers think that price-marked packs are an effective form of promoting products in store, and 50% of independent retailers say that price-marked confectionery packs benefit their business. The majority of independent retailers decide their pricing by RRP.

But wholesalers will be nervous about reducing the number of promotions as fewer promotions mean less promotional income - unless a trade-off between wholesalers and suppliers could be sought on the basis that a slight increase in promotional spend by suppliers would be off-set against higher returns (sales) caused by more impactful displays as a result of less promotional POS wall-paper.

The majority of retailers say aisle end promotional displays usually result in them buying the product, which may lead suppliers and operators to consider whether aisle end promotional displays need to have discounted lines. It could be a case of just stack a key product at a competitive price and create some theatre around it.

If we look back five years ago and asked retailers what they thought about price-marked packs, they'd have thrown them out, claiming suppliers were dictating prices to them.

Today, however, we have a different story - retailers actually quite like them, to the point that 40% of retailers say price-marked cigarette packs actually benefit their business. Only 4% say they have a negative effect. How times have changed.

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