Specialty Grocery Store

The Challenge

A specialty grocery chain was expanding into a new market. In previous expansions, they had experienced a “J-curve” where initial traffic was extremely high, followed by a sharp fall out. They wanted to even out this curve, and better understand the competitive landscape in the new market.

The Project

Our team conducted multifaceted research, including competitive analysis and demographic analysis of the new market. In addition, I did in store observations and shop alongs with customers to understand the experience of navigating the store.

Key Insights

While the store heavily marketed to the 25-40 age group, the area near the store had a high proportion of 50+ customers who had the wealth and the time and interest in gastronomy, making them an ideal target market who should be catered to with more attention.

Younger customers with small children could not get all their groceries at the store—while they wanted the speciality items, they would need to go elsewhere for some necessities such as diapers. Given the need to go to multiple stores, and often having children in tow, they did not want to spend a lot of time in this store.

The store had a maze-like layout, encouraging customers to wind through every section. While there were shortcuts, they were not well marked, frustrating customers who wanted a quick trip.

Outcomes

The store shifted more marketing toward the 50+ demographic that could spend more time and money in the store, and made changes such as better marked short-cuts that enabled other shoppers to make a quicker trip.