Cooking Up Sales: Make Cookware a Key Part of Your Housewares Department

While it may not be a core category for most home improvement operations, housewares can address customers’ daily needs and comforts and fill a hole in the local market. A cooking supplies section in particular is an excellent category for impulse buys and can be easily curated to showcase current trends.

To strategically market her store’s cooking section, Megan Smith, gifts and housewares buyer at Longenecker’s Hardware in Manheim, Pennsylvania, crafts creative displays to catch the eyes of hungry customers who rely on her store to fill their housewares needs.

“Our cooking supplies section is pretty important—it’s a key part of our store,” Smith says. “If it were to leave, I think it would definitely leave a dent.”

Curate Your Endcaps

Longenecker’s Hardware has a uniquely extensive housewares section, especially for a hardware store. Housewares, including cookware, bakeware and small cooking appliances, make up around 15% of the store’s inventory.

“A seventh of the store doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you see it in person, it makes up a good portion of the store,” Smith says.

The housewares section features three aisles of small appliances, a cookware and bakeware section, a wall of specialty kitchen gadgets, a large canning section and a smaller area for kitchen accessories like tea towels.

Smith takes the time to thoughtfully curate aisle endcaps to showcase a specific or new product or series of products that come into the store.

“We have endcaps that phase out into the main walkway of our store,” says Smith. “Usually, we’re fine tuning those to whatever season we’re in, or to something that came in new.”

Endcaps are also an effective way to showcase various products that share a common theme, which can help boost add-on sales and transaction sizes. Smith recently designed a bread making endcap, outfitted with dough whisks, bread slings and Dutch ovens.

“A lot of times, the endcaps are impulse items,” Smith says. “For example, if someone walks by our corn items, they are reminded of items that are helpful for shucking corn. You try to grab a customer’s attention while they’re walking by a display, and then switching that up frequently creates more interest as people go through the store.”

Follow the Seasons

While capitalizing on the seasons throughout the year works for many categories, seasonal marketing strategies are particularly effective for cooking products.

During the Christmas season, Longenecker’s Hardware sells an assortment of cookie cutters and rolling pins, and when summer rolls around, cherry products like pitters are top sellers. In Manheim, canning and corn are also summer staples and bring in significant sales during these months.

“People in our area do a lot of canning, so in the summer, we sell a lot of corn brushes, corn cutters and canning supplies,” Smith says.

Longenecker’s also promotes cooking items through its rental category. During the summer, the store brings in a corn de-silker for demonstrations and holds a grilling demonstration.

“Each year, we have a grill demo out front,” Smith says. “One of our grilling vendor reps comes down, and he’ll grill outside at the front of the store so customers see it as they’re driving by.”

Customers often purchase cooking items along with other housewares as these items are all housed in the same section of the store.

Take a Customer-Centric Approach to Sourcing

Smith takes care to curate the cooking product selection to meet the needs and wallets of Longenecker’s Hardware customers.

The cooking products at Longenecker’s include mostly moderate to lower-priced items. Smith chooses products within these price points based on what has sold in the past.

“We don’t carry many higher-priced items because those don’t sell very well in our area,” Smith says. “We have pressure canners that might push $100, but nothing over that.”

Hardware stores equipped with robust housewares sections can serve as a one-stop shop for local shoppers, providing everything they need from one store instead of needing to visit multiple. Longenecker’s is one of the few conveniently located stores for locals to purchase cooking supplies due to the absence of specialty kitchenware stores in the immediate area. Many customers visit Longenecker’s exclusively for their extensive cooking section but also have the convenience of shopping for home improvement items.

“We have a large number people coming into the store just for this section because we also have a gift and cards area—it all goes together to boost sales,” Smith says. “Our cooking category does well for our area, considering we are a hardware store. We have a lot more than most hardware stores would expect to have.”