Gillette's violent Fusion handle price promotion...Mach3 in growth, ditto King of Shaves Azor.

I'm always intrigued to see the results of monthly sales data as to how we're faring against "Wilkinette", by the end of next month we'll have had 12 months sales data from our King of Shaves Azor being in the market, and I'll report then (as sales over the last few weeks of the Azor have been phenomenal).

However, I know for a fact our presence in the market is starting to really bite, as in the past 4 weeks, Gillette unleashed their most violent handle price promotion on Fusion yet, with the average handle price falling to just £2.70 (normal RSP £7.99-£9.99).  The price of handles in the preceeding 4 week period was £7.03.  A drop of £4.33 (almost the entire price of our Azor handle & 3 cartridges).  As I write this, Wilkinson Sword are (once again) promotiong their Quattro Precision Trimmer, at 50% off.

Ouch.

The reason for this, is that sales of Mach3 cartridges, which had been inexorably declining, from approximately 590,000 packs (sold in August 2007) to 367,000 packs (sold in April 2009) have started climbing...386,000 packs sold in the 4 weeks to June 13th 2009.  This decline (now, seemingly reversing) dragged overall sales of Gillette system blades down from £155m to £147.8m -  a 4.6% decrease.  During the same period - 4 weeks to June 14 08 v same period, June 09, sales of Gillette system handles also decreased.  This is a bit like your 11 year old CD player outselling your newly launched MP3 player, and looking at the trends, I don't see it stopping anytime soon.  Hence the violent Fusion handle price promotion.

With the launch of WS's QPT simply taking market sales away from their non-powered variants (rather than substantially growing market share) and their cartridge sales only up just under £1m at retail, then they continue to occupy an interesting place - with Gillette promoting heavily whilst sitting on top, and us spending increasingly offensively as we come up from zero sales, this time last year.

On that note, we had our largest month of Azor handle sales (40,000) in April, and our largest ever sales of cartridges (last week), of approximately 54,000, and with what we have planned during the summer, and in the count-down to Christmas, I don't see this increase in rate of sale letting up anytime soon - indeed, at our current rate of growth, sales of our Azor handle will overtake those of both Quattro & Quattro Titanium within a couple of months, and then start to close in on their next, more established targets...

So, expect to see a lot more marketing, advertising and promotion over the coming months - with the total market in razors & blades being worth (conservatively) £311m at retail, there's a three hundred million pound business to play for.

A note if you're choosing to shave with disposables - both Bic's & Gillette's sales of these (landfilling) products are down (Bic's to £8.9m at retail, Gillette's to £21.9m at retail); Wilkinson Sword's are up (£946k to £9.7m at retail), almost entirely due to them putting their Quattro cartridge on a disposable handle (which makes, to be honest, a bit of a mockery of having a Quattro system).

My final comment, is that from a quality & cost/shave perspective, there has never been a better time to be a wet shaver - and I hold us at least partially responsible for driving up the quality, and down the cost of shaving, especially important noting the continuing economic backdrop. 

Like I say, with our Azor, you can enjoy the King of Shaves without the Ransom!