What’s cooking in housewares?

It seems that America, after all, is not a takeout nation. A resurgence in home cooking is picking up the pace in housewares sales, and kitchenware could emerge as an important category for home improvement retailers in the coming months and years.

At a keynote educational session at the 2016 International Home + Housewares Show in March, Retail Insights’ Todd Hale (together with a panel of category experts and retailers) discussed the importance of kitchenware as a driver of shopping trips, and not merely an afterthought.

Though the seminar focused on merchandising strategies for grocers and food retailers, the participants pointed out that time-starved consumers (especially millennials) like to shop store perimeters. Bringing housewares out into the highly trafficked areas of one’s store can not only catalyze a shift in shopper awareness (“this is a store that offers these types of products”); it can also provide opportunities for endcaps and promotions.

A display of turkey basters in the days leading up to Thanksgiving or a bin of avocado pitters for Cinco de Mayo can hit the spot for shoppers. “But promotions or special displays don’t have to be just during the big holidays,” said Tammy Marlowe, director of GM/HBW, Associated Food Stores, Inc. “There are birthdays, anniversaries, everyday get-togethers. Any kind of seasonal, solution-driven display is valuable.”

Indeed, kitchenware is a year-round proposition. As Hale put it, research from Nielsen suggests that 90% of the household population purchases food prep products, with an average frequency of six times a year.

Additionally, a March 2015 report by IBISWorld found that the $11 billion kitchen and cookware stores market experienced annual growth of 2.2% between 2010 and 2015. These next five years promise to bring ramped-up growth, however, as consumers spend more on high-end, luxury products.

How to capture this swell? Well, one of the findings mentioned at the panel is that 70% of kitchenware shoppers plan their purchases, but 40% of them are still highly impressionable at the retail level. Increasing top-of-mind awareness as a retailer who sells these items — plus merchandising the products effectively for open-minded shoppers — are both ways to get on the consumer’s level.