Back to school goodies from Shoppers Drug Mart

Teen Pack for girls at Shoppers Drug Mart, Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC

Teen Pack for boys at Shoppers Drug Mart, Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC

Gear for Girls at Shoppers Drug Mart, Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC

Every year Shoppers Drug Mart works with it suppliers and rolls out these boxes of goodies. There are versions for boys and girls, although only the "Gear for Girls" pack is explicitly marked with a gender.

Why do Shoppers and the brands involved produce these packs?

The simple answer is to help consumers gain experience with the products, and ultimately become loyal customers.

In my AATPRP model I propose that consumers need to be lead through a number of stages to become loyal and long-term customers. The stages are; awareness, attitude, trial, purchase and repeat purchase.

These packs neatly accomplish the first three. Does this sort of sampling lead to the development of loyal long-term customers? Given the breadth of data that Shoppers collects with the Optimum programme the results are highly measurable. If it didn't work, I think that it would have been abandoned long ago.