Customers

Working with our customers

While large retailers continue to grow, small shops, street markets and kiosks remain important distributors of our products. Our goal is to ensure that Unilever is the partner of choice for our local as well as for our international customers. With our expertise and international network of businesses, we are well placed to work with retail groups in innovative ways to meet shoppers’ needs.

International retail customers account for a growing proportion of our sales, with around a fifth of our worldwide revenues channelled through ten major retail chains. One of our strategic priorities is to upgrade the capabilities of our customer development teams – and the teams they work with across marketing, finance, supply chain and human resources – to ensure we are the first choice for our customers and consumers. In 2006 we continued to build integrated customer teams at national, regional and international levels, working across our local companies. Our new approach has already led to sales increases in a number of key markets.

In France, retailer Carrefour has endorsed our new concentrated laundry detergent, Skip petit & puissant. The product comes in a smaller bottle which requires 57% less packaging, 60% fewer product pallets being transported and 60% less outer packaging for retailers to discard compared to its less concentrated formulation. This contributes to Carrefour’s sustainability goals as well as our own.

Diverse routes to market

In many parts of the world, particularly in developing and emerging countries, our route to market is through a diverse network of small, independent retailers, outlets and kiosks. Here our approach is to work in partnership. We provide support, help build capacity and professionalism to enable them to compete and reach consumers more effectively. This in turn helps increase our market share and penetration while also helping build sustainable distribution networks and supporting local economic development.

We have numerous examples of this approach across our operations, such as Shakti, a network of over 30 000 women entrepreneurs in India, and Project Aparajita, a similar initiative in Bangladesh (see Creating & sharing wealth). In the Philippines, we have been working in partnership with the Philippine Federation of Local Councils of Women to help tackle poverty. Together in June 2006 they launched Kabisig, a neighbourhood seller programme which enables previously unemployed people to earn a living by selling our products directly to households in their local communities. Kabisig members are supported by the Federation which lends them the capital needed to purchase Unilever products and start their own small businesses.

Unilever China has been working with Wal-Mart to raise consumer awareness of environmental challenges while raising the profile of both the retailer and our brands in local communities. In August 2006 we launched an in-store recycling campaign to encourage consumers to deposit their used packaging in Unilever and Wal-Mart branded waste collection containers. The campaign reached 100 000 consumers and increased sales dramatically for Omo (183%) and Lux (70%) products during the promotional period.

Diverse routes to market 2006

Brazil (BR), Ghana (GH), United Kingdom (UK)