I’ve always been critical about the ways grocery stores market every day. I think it’s full of “bad examples”. Unless I am inside Fresh and Easy, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods or Sprouts, I won’t know any difference whenever visiting places like Basha’s or Albertson’s.
Then there are service friendly ones, such as Safeway, Vons and Fry’s. At least the workers inside know how to call your last name when you’re going through cashier and ask you in aisle if you need anything.
Don’t Reward Everyone
There are tactics accepted as “standards” in grocery stores (or they’ve come to accept, should I say?). For example, every store you go to, there seems to be some kind of “reward”, which in reality is not a reward at all since it’s given to anyone with a shopper’s card.
If shopper’s card is used, why not use it to collect the buying habit of each customer and send coupons? Instead of relying on mass advertising, deliver coupons that target the products you know your customers buy every week. If I am not getting that, why bother filling out an envelope that gives away my personal information such as phone number in order for me to receive your shopper’s card?
Low Price Isn’t the Option
Low price? If every item on every isle had “low price” stickers, how do I know which item is really low price? If you want to offer low priced items, why not work out a deal with manufacture to private label products and sell them as your brand? Target does this, Walmart does this and if they can do that, stores can get the same products at much lower price and won’t need to get into the price bidding wars with competitors. If they should, spend money on packaging, learn from Fresh and Easy or Target and create visually appealing packages to deliver your brand.
Get rid of that ugly copier! For whatever reason, grocers feel they must offer $0.10 copier in their stores. That’s fine, but don’t place 25 year old analog copier covered full of ink toner as the first thing customers must see when walking into the store. It’s probably costing more to keep it than making money.
The problem is, customers or grocers never question the way businesses operate. Because stores operate the same way as they do everywhere, it creates expectation amongst customers. Customers don’t expect to be delighted because they don’t believe stores can.
If you’re a grocer, you owe it to yourself to rethink this. Your employees and their families, neighboring stores and neighborhood shoppers all depend on you. They want you to do well because it’s a problem if you go out of business or must lay off workers.
Our economy is changing and so are shoppers. Shoppers are given unlimited amount of choices, but losing more and more time every day.
What can you do to delight your customers? What can you do to overwhelm them with your ability to deliver? Price is no longer the option, people go to Walmart for that.
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