Nestlé Taps Into Bottled Water On-Demand
The Swiss company is getting a big lift from customized Web orders for its Poland Springs, Perrier and Pure Life brands in the U.S.
Water is heavy, cheap and flows from kitchen taps—not exactly the first thing you’d consider putting on your online shopping list, right?
Well, it’s more popular than you might think.
Nestlé SA says its U.S. water home-delivery business grew twice as fast as shipments to brick-and-mortar stores last year. In the first quarter of this year, it grew three times faster, and Nestlé expects the momentum to continue.
For decades, trucks have dropped off five-gallon, 40-pound jugs for water coolers to houses and offices, typically at regular intervals through subscriptions. Customers received monthly bills by mail. Then sales stalled during the recession.
Now Nestlé says it’s getting a big lift from customized Web orders for its still and sparkling water brands, including Poland Springs, Perrier and Pure Life, after it spent millions of dollars upgrading software. The company began offering a broader packaging mix, including half-liter bottles, a couple of years ago. Since last year, online consumers also could make one-time orders, with delivery within 24 hours.
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Shoppers increasingly are ordering everything from diapers to wine online. When itcomes to water, some don’t like how it tastes from the tap and don’t want to carry something heavy from a store. Now they don’t even have to lift a five-gallon jug in their house, and can change orders on the fly.
“The world is going this way,” said Tim Brown, president of Nestlé Waters North America. “It’s the convenience factor.’’
Some consumers appear willing to pay for that convenience. Nestlé says its home-delivery business has avoided increasing competition in stores, where prices for bottled water have been falling in recent years as private-label brands proliferate. It says customers typically pay $6 to $7 for a case of 24 half-liter bottles delivered to their homes, compared with $5 and less in stores.
Families, not single-person households, are doing most of the buying when it comes to home delivery, said Mr. Brown, who estimates U.S. household penetration of delivered water is only about 2%. Bottled water makers are benefiting from consumers avoiding soda, whose U.S. sales volumes have declined 10 straight years amid health and obesity concerns.
The Swiss company’s delivery business, roughly split between 1.5 million homes and offices, represented about 20% of its $4 billion in U.S. water sales last year.
Nestlé says its U.S. water home delivery business grew twice as fast as shipments to brick-and-mortar stores last year. The production line at the company’s processing plant in Dallas. PHOTO: BRANDON THIBODEAUX FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Nestlé says its water sales to U.S. homes and small businesses rose 14% in volume terms in 2014, compared with 7.8% at stores. In the first quarter of this year, the company says its direct-to-consumer shipments increased nearly 21%, compared with 5.5% at retail outlets.
Other companies see the same opportunity. Private-label soda maker Cott Corp. last December acquired DS Services of America Inc., which delivers water via its water.com site, for $1.25 billion including debt. Consumers on Costco.com can have an entire pallet—1,872 half-liter bottles—of Pure Life water delivered to their homes for $489.99, if they live on the first floor.
Coca-Cola Co.’s Dasani and PepsiCo Inc.’s Aquafina water brands are sold onAmazon.com. Fiji Water Company LLC, which has been delivering water from a remote South Pacific island to U.S. stores for years, also offers home delivery. Its website offers shipping a 36-pack of 330-milliliter bottles for $47.50.
Nestlé has an advantage because it’s the biggest seller of bottled water in the U.S., with an estimated 34.9% share of the $13 billion market at wholesale prices. It also controls about a third of the $1.6 billion home-delivery market, with DS Services a close second, estimates industry tracker Beverage Marketing Corp.
The company owns a fleet of 2,000 delivery trucks for homes and offices reaching 60% of the U.S. population. Drivers track orders with hand-held devices and make about 50 deliveries a day. The average order is about $35, with roughly 20% of that for shipping costs. Orders carry a $20 minimum.
Not everyone is convinced this is the wave of the future for water.
“I don’t think water for hydration to keep us alive is going to be delivered by UPS or Amazon,’’ said Tom Pirko, managing director at Bevmark and a longtime beverage industry consultant.
Michael Bellas, chief executive at Beverage Marketing, expects single-serve bottles bought outside the home to continue to be the biggest driver of industry growth over the next few years. But he also sees potential for companies like Nestlé and DS Services that have built large customer bases from years of delivering five-gallon jugs.
“They already have entry into the home and the idea is to leverage that. It’s a service business,” said Mr. Bellas.
