Rather than half an aisle of Cadbury purple, Shelftrend’s confectionery sales data on eBay Australia, including Coles on eBay, in some respects look quite different from what we see in supermarkets.
For a start, lollies represent more than three quarters (78.3%) of the category’s 39,000+ listings at the end of February. Chocolate sweets and assortments are next with 15.1% of listings. Block chocolate is an also-ran at 3.2% of listings, with novelty chocolates also 3% of listings.
Here, we’re going to look at each of these subcategories.
LOLLIES: INDICATIONS OF TRADE BUYING
Of the top 1000 lolly listings, just over 20% are unbranded. These lead in unit sales and are second in $ sold per week. Chupa Chups leads $ sales with $1310 per week, likely to foodservice channels although there may be some consumers buying for parties.
The number three seller of the top 1000 listings in $ sold per week at $565 is a US brand called Jolly Rancher not readily available in Australia. Costco’s Kirkland brand is the number seven of the top 15 brands in $ sold per week.
Top individual sellers are predominantly bulk packs, for instance, Fruitme 10 packs, 100 Clear Cello treats bags, Mars 226-piece packs, Wonka 1kg packs. Much of the category is, therefore, bulk buys in the $20 to $40 range per item, along with fairy floss sugar used in novelty fairy floss machines (Fubu fairy floss sugar is the number six seller), and Coles has very little sales in this category.
CHOCOLATE SWEETS & ASSORTMENTS: NICHE PRODUCTS
Coles also has very little representation in this category. It’s mostly weird and wonderful niche products such as liqueur chocolates and coins. Of the top unit sellers per week, unbranded products are numbers 1, 3 and 8. Nestle is number two and Cadbury number four although with a high median price of $87.
Median price for the category ranges from $13 for Nestle Japan (likely for Wasabi and Green Tea Kit Kats) to a whopping $182 for Grezon, Fazer and Anthon Berg brands. While there are more listings in the $10 to $30 price bracket, sales from listings within the $30-$120 price range are fairly even.
The top listing is a 50 Japanese Kit Kat flavours assortment, followed by Grezon chocolate egg toy surprise bulk packs (eggs with plastic shells containing "surprise toys" often leveraging licensed characters like Paw Patrol and Barbie) and Anthon Berg chocolate liqueurs at number three. Other high performing sellers include Schokakola caffeine 10 packs from Germany, chocolate coated pretzels, Ferrero Rocher kilo packs, Cadbury 100 chocolate hearts. There may be some wedding and party sales here.
BLOCK CHOCOLATE: STILL ABOUT THE BIG BRANDS
Although this category has 1298 listings, only 28% of them registered sales by the end of February, with the top four brands representing 41% of these but 79% of the sales volume, pointing to relative category concentration. Cadbury was the number one selling brand with 105 units per week and 46% of total units sold, at an average $5.00 per unit, the same price as Woolworths online during the period. Nestle was the second brand with 32 units sold per week, 14% of category sales and an average sell price of $5.95. Lindt wasn’t far behind with 26 units per week and 11% of total sales units, but an average sell price of $3.00. Fourth was Toblerone at 15 units per week, 6% of total units but interestingly an average $21.20 price point, evidently for the bulk packs.
Six of the top ten listings were by Coles. This demonstrates how receptive eBay buyers are to large retailers being on eBay - instead of being snubbed for the general type of eBay business, they appear to have been embraced to the extent that they are leaders in some categories.
NOVELTY CHOCOLATE: ALL ABOUT SHAPE
This category is all about shapes - hearts, coins, eggs, fish, roses et al. Popular products for weddings and parties. It’s dominated by generics although Cadbury is number four by sales volume per week including for its bulk mini egg packs.
The appearance of eggs across categories could partly be attributed to pre-Easter sales, although the Grezon toy surprise eggs register consistent sales year-round.
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Australia eBay and Coles on eBay data, sourced by ShelfTrend as at February 2020.