Last updated on September 23rd, 2016 at 10:41 am
Tod Marks, executive director of Market Centre sales at Unified Grocers, will be a featured speaker at the upcoming California Grocers Association (CGA) Strategic Conference 2016, which begins Sunday, Sept. 25, in Palm Springs. Marks will discuss “Merchandising Health and Wellness” in an educational session from 7-8:30 a.m. Sept. 26 at the Palm Springs Renaissance Convention Center.
The “whiteboard session” will explore ways for retailers (of all store formats) to capture sales in the growing health, beauty and wellness category. Retailers will learn how they can use market insights and their suppliers’ expertise to select products that have attributes that will resonate with shoppers and address their price concerns. The discussion also will cover the benefits of integrating HBW products into traditional store sets, and merchandising strategies that will call attention to them and make shopper education easy and effective.
Marks said, “By arming independent retailers with information and resources for successfully incorporating GM/HBW items into their overall product mix, we’re seeing them win back their share of this growing market from the big chains and reinvigorate both their HBW and conventional product sales. Shoppers like it too because they’re able to get everything they need in one stop.”
Marks is a 35-year veteran of the grocery industry. He started in the business working for a local family-owned IGA grocery store and continued his career advancement with companies such as Fleming and Tree of Life, holding a variety of positions in sales, marketing and procurement. He joined Unified Grocers in 2007 and has been promoted to positions of increasing responsibility. He currently is responsible for Unified’s Market Centre sales and national business. Market Centre is the specialty, natural, ethnic and GM/HBW division of Unified Grocers.
