Cigarette sales steady

Press, 10 February 1989, Page 14

Cigarette sales steady

In spite of continuing price increases cigarette sales are steady and in some cases increasing. The manager of Papanui Countdown Foodmarket, Mr Bruce Hardy, said sales in cigarettes were "as steady as ever and don’t look to be changing at all. “It’s just like beer, no matter how much the prices go up, people will still buy them no matter what,” Mr Hardy said. More people were buying two or three packets and others opted for. entire cartons at the checkout counter, he said. When specials were advertised buyers were taking as much as they could afford as cigarettes were rising in price all the time, Mr Hardy said. The cigarette and confectionery buyer for the Shirley Supervalue Super-

market, Mrs Pauline Somervell, said she had no official figures available, but she could estimate sales by the number of cartons she was topping up each week. "Sales have certainly not decreased and I think I’d go as far as saying they had increased, if anything,” Mrs Somervell said. The director of commercial services for Rothmans of Pall Mall (N.Z.), Ltd, Mr Owen Morgan, said there had been a slight decrease in sales but this was to be expected with the huge tax increase which exceeded 70 per cent of the cost of a cigarette packet. “It will affect the working man the most because he will find it difficult now to afford the prices being demanded,” Mr Morgan said.

Mr Morgan said increased thefts of cigarettes were “not surprising” because of price increases, but Rothmans was increasing security measures to meet the rise in thefts. A spokesman for Wills Tobacco Manufacturers and Merchants said sales remained volatile because of the holiday period, the recent price rise on January 1, and an impending price increase on April 1. "A pattern of cigarette sales is unlikely to become visible until about five to six months,” he said. Mr Morgan, of Rothmans, said tobacco firms would continue to “tighten” their operations and become more efficient to meet the Government’s challenge in continually increasing tobacco taxes.