Total sales up 8.5% across cough-cold category

So far it looks like the 2014-15 cough-cold season is off to a strong start, as total cold/allergy/sinus dollar sales from August through December 2014 increased 8.5% over the same period in 2013, according to Competitive Promotion Report.

(Click here to view the full Category Review.)



“Recent gains in overall dollar sales may be due to the recent increase in incidence over the past two months,” Glen Davis, CPR president and CEO, told Drug Store News. However, Chattem’s introduction of Nasacort contributed to a large portion of the cold/allergy/sinus category’s dollar gains in 2014. Nasacort was responsible for 2.3% of the entire category’s sales in 2014. “Without Nasacort, the category as a whole would have only grown by 6% from August to December in 2014 as compared with the same time period in 2013,” Davis said.



When not including Nasacort revenues, Reckitt Benckiser was the biggest gainer in terms of dollar sales in the category, with a gain of $40.4 million over the previous season. “Reckitt has a strong showing with its children’s products despite taking a price increase late in 2014,” Davis said. “This growth may be attributed to Reckitt’s large increase in units sold on promotion. While its non-promoted units grew by 36,000, its promoted units grew by 3.6 million vs. prior season.”



Private label numbers declined in unit sales across both the liquid and tablet segments despite overall growth in the category. However, private label has gained slightly in total dollar sales, mainly due to its steady increase in retail price of its cold/allergy/sinus liquid products. The average retail price of a private label liquid unit rose close to 7% from $5.30 in 2013 to $5.69 in 2014.