From the 2022 Express Seminar: Basket-Building Contest for 2022

“Building your basket”—getting a customer to add at least one item to a planned purchase—has been a key topic at this week’s Express seminar in Orlando, Florida. It is also integral to a 2022 contest among Expresses, troop stores, Class 6 stores and more.

“Contests are fun and inspire a spirit of competition,” said Consumables Vice President Martha Robuck. “They help associates focus on methods that are important to improving sales.”

The seminar closed out with a presentation from the Convenience Merchandising team, including Divisional Merchandise Manager David Arens as Sammy Hagar and DMM Danielle Pelland as Pat Benatar, encouraging associates to rock their sales in 2022.

The Build Your Sales Basket by Cross-Merchandising contest, which runs through Jan. 31, challenges the stores to have the largest increases in average sales per basket compared with the same period (May 1-Jan. 31) in fiscal 2021.

Endcaps with BE FIT products are one example of cross-merchandising to build baskets. “If you walk into a store thinking, ‘I’m getting a protein bar and water,’ you might also see that nuts are on sale, and they’re also good for you, so you buy them,” Robuck said. “You’re buying something you didn’t come in to buy, but it makes sense when you get there.”

There will be one winner per region, for a total of five stores.

Winners will be announced at the 2023 Express Seminar and will receive a $200 office party.

Stores that set up cross-merchandising displays are encouraged to share their creative ideas by sending the display photos to David Yi, senior policy program manager, yida@aafes.com

Keep up with the Express Seminar!

Associates can follow the excitement all week long on the Exchange’s associate-focused social media channels on Twitter and Instagram.

Don’t forget to visit the Flickr album!