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As the weather warms up from spring into summer, discover the top tips from Coca-Cola Europacific Partners on refreshing your soft drinks sales and capitalising on outdoor gatherings.
The soft drinks category is worth £4.4bn annually to convenience retailers [Nielsen] and presents a major opportunity over the summer months. This summer there are a host of sporting events, including Wimbledon, UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 and Glastonbury that will encourage families and friends to get together. This presents an opportunity for retailers to create theatre and cross-category displays to engage shoppers.
Thirty-one per cent of summer festival goers brought their own drinks to events as a cost-saving measure last year [CGA], which presents an opportunity for nearby stores.
Other opportunities, include:
Soft drinks with food – on-the-go snacking & BBQ: Snacks make up 31% of food-to-go occasions [Lumina]; and pairing food with drinks can double shopper engagement and boost sales by 32% [Connecta]. Stocking sharing packs of soft drinks alongside meals and snacks ensures shoppers can grab everything they need for a picnic or BBQ. With 82% of shoppers preferring chilled drinks for immediate consumption [One Pulse], retailers should prioritise fridge visibility in high-footfall areas near checkouts.
Energising break – ready-to-drink coffee & energy: The ready-to-drink (RTD) chilled coffee sector, sells well all year round, worth more than £329.9m [Nielsen], but is especially relevant over the summer when hot coffee drinkers look for something more refreshing. Energy drinks are the no.1 deliverer of value growth in soft drinks, worth more than £2.1bn to retailers [NIQ].
Value delivery: Value remains a top shopper priority, followed by quality and brands [Lumina]. Price-marked packs help reassure shoppers and offer convenience retailers a competitive edge. Soft drinks PMPs are worth £1.6bn in total impulse [Nielsen].
To meet all of these opportunities successfully, big brands remain key. For example, Coca-Cola – GB’s No.1 soft drink [Nielsen], Fanta and Dr Pepper – the top two flavoured carbonates brands in GB [Nielsen], Schweppes – an iconic mixer worth almost £87m [Nielsen], and Monster – GB’s fastest-growing energy drink brand [Nielsen] can all drive consumer interest and flag the soft drinks category in-store.
Meanwhile, for a summer boost of caffeine, Costa Coffee, the nation’s favourite coffee shop [Project], offers RTD Lattes, Frappés and a Flat White, to suit every coffee drinker. Meanwhile, for those seeking an energy boost on-the-go, more than half of total energy category growth in GB retail was driven by Monster in 2024 [NIQ] .
Top tips to drive sales
Research shows that optimising your range and perfecting the layout of your soft drinks fixture can lead to a 27% uplift in sales [Nielsen]. There are three core principles to follow:
Right range – Use sales data to build a range of best-selling lines across each soft drink segment. Give major brands enough space to avoid out of stocks while also making space for new launches.
Right space – Consider which soft drink segments are going to drive sales when allocating space. For example, colas are the largest soft drinks segment in retail [Nielsen] so you should dedicate roughly a quarter of your chiller to cola – including zero sugar options and flavoured colas.
Make sure you dedicate the right amount of space to growing segments like RTD chilled coffee too.
Right layout – Shoppers look for major brands as a ‘signpost’ to the product they want [Shopper], so ensure leading brands are merchandised in high visibility locations. Stocking soft drinks alongside complementary categories – such as take-home packs with BBQ items – can also help shoppers pick up everything they need.
Visit/register on My.CCEP.com for more guidance.
Retailer testimonial
“Soft drinks are key to summer sales in my store. Keeping them chilled boosts sales and helps offset energy costs. Cross-merchandising with BBQ essentials and snacks makes shopping easier, while larger packs give customers confidence that they’ll find what they need for summer gatherings.
“CCEP’s range, with the likes of Coca-Cola, Fanta, Dr Pepper and Monster, makes it simple to meet shopper demand, and by using these strategies, summer sales can really take off. My.CCEP.com is also great place to go for business support. You can order POS, which is great for getting shoppers excited about the newest launches and promotions.”
Key products to stock
Where to go
You can access category advice, details of the latest launches, POS materials and much more by visiting My.CCEP.com – where you can also add to your next wholesale order, and enter seasonal retailer promotions for the chance to win great prizes!
