With bath care emerging this year as the next big “opportunity wave” for chain drug stores, buyers in just about every major chain are wrestling with the question of how to present bath care.

Distinctions between the bath and skin care categories are blurring. The recent explosion in skin care sales has encouraged most skin care manufacturers to expand into the cleansing and bath categories, and more new players are jumping into these categories every day.

Now buyers are trying to figure out how to best merchandise the bath care category. Should they: * create a specialty bath and body section with all the lines merchandised together as a family; * display the broadest family lines by themselves in a mini-boutique on an endcap or a floor fixture; * merchandise bath care as a segment within the traditional HBA aisle; or * merchandise bath as part of a cosmetics or gift department specialty set?

At PayLess in Oregon, Sheri Ralston, bath buyer for the cosmetics department, says this category has emerged as one of the strongest growth opportunities of the ’90s. However, she adds that it has also “challenged” PayLess to come up with a plan that maximizes its potential while minimizing the risk it takes to develop this potential.

“We want to create a boutique environment. But it costs money to do it right. It’s difficult to decide whether we should use vendors’ fixtures or come up with some of our own to give us a unique presentation. It’s an expensive option since we have so many stores. We have to determine if there is enough growth to justify that much of an investment.”

Ralston currently merchandises “cosmetic” bath care products in a 12-to 16-feet valley organized into three segments: children’s bath, self-use items, and gift and trendy items. “You need a presentation of each of these to cover a broad spectrum of that category,” she says. “Plus, it helps us create a presentation that is appealing and affordable.”

New boutique presentation

In New Orleans, K&B has expanded its bath and body in-line sections to four to eight feet, depending on the size of the store. HBA buyer Chuck Gautreaux and cosmetics buyer Donna McManus have also created a new boutique presentation for bath and body lines: two back-to-back wooden hutches that the chain merchandises as the “K&B Boutique” department.

This gives the chain a permanent off-shelf home for Karen Carsons, Naturistics, Windham and Vuarnet’s new bath and body line.

Gautreaux and McManus select lines for the set on the basis of their upscale packaging, quality formulas, price points and overall “class image.”

Michigan-based F&M Distributors now dedicates from 50 to 64 feet to skin and bath care products.

“We like the skin and bath care categories,” says cosmetic director Pat Gardocki. “Our primary focus is on beauty. More than half the space in our stores is devoted to beauty care products, so we want to do whatever we can to build a beauty image for our stores.”

Detroit-based Perry has tested Naturistics and Sarah Michaels on endcaps in several stores, and VP of Merchandising Steve Lund says he likes both lines.

Lund says that for the time being, the chain will continue to use endcaps to merchandise bath and body. “We don’t like to tie an endcap up permanently, but it’s a compromise. We’ll use them so we can be in the category, and when we develop a new in-line program, we’ll switch to that.”

Austin Drug, which caters to a carriage trade in the metro New York market, has had a 16-foot cosmetics bath care center since 1989.

The chain created its own fixture by taking the doors off what used to be locked fragrance cases and converting the fragrance bar into a bath department with open shelves.

Cosmetics buyer Janice Jacobs says the chain tends to merchandise “everything related to bath” in the center: potpourri, bath gels, candles, specialty soaps. “We haven’t put mass brands in the center,” says Jacobs, “because the emphasis is on department store types of products at a value. We also change the selection constantly, so we’re not trying to give any brand a home. We’re simply exposing our customers to the types of products they can use to accessorize their bath. We want to give them variety, because we want them to come back and shop us for whatever is new and fashionable.”

Ohio-based Drug Emporium had been merchandising bath care on the other side of its Skin Care Center. The center is a valley with its own signage that is usually located in the opening aisles of the store’s cosmetics department.

The new prototype, which is being tested now in one store, has separate fixtures dedicated just to bath,

Kathy Covault, merchandise manager for cosmetics and fashion merchandise for Drug Emporium, basically uses the center to showcase the premium lines like Jean Nate, Vitabath, Cosmyl, Aromatherapy, and English Water Lily from Parfums Parquet.