At this week’s National Grocers Association (NGA) convention in Las Vegas, RetailWire.com moderated a discussion on the “Top 21 things grocery retailers can do to entice shoppers in an economic downturn.” Panel members presented their ideas and audience members voted on them. Panelists included BrainTrust members Liz Crawford and Ron Margulis, along with “Supermarket Guru” Phil Lempert, who was a gracious last-minute sub for Ryan Mathews.
While the audience was composed primarily of execs from small to mid-sized grocers, many of the ideas were appropriate for a variety of types of retailers. The top five ideas, as voted by the audience, were:
1. Maintain your quality standards: Never lower quality just to achieve a better price. This one can be seen as surprising on two levels; the expectation that retailers would go for some of the more futuristic ideas as a means to differentiate themselves, and because we know that many are sorely tempted to lower quality to cut costs in this economy.
2. Offer the best market price on a key market basket: Establish the standard market of food basics. That this idea ranked so high points out how tough the economy really is, and how important smaller grocers believe it is to compete with Wal-Mart.
3. Improve shopper marketing: Encourage shoppers to visit every aisle with signage, sampling, and incentives. This idea was a bit of a surprise as a high ranker as well, as it indicates a “back to basics” approach in engaging the customer in-store.
4. Use shopper feedback to increase loyalty: Use improved communications to enter a more meaningful dialogue with customers. From Twitter to mobile technology to the old-fashioned idea of walking around and talking to customers, the panel and audience believe engaging in a constant dialogue with shoppers is important.
5. Initiate a school outreach program: Teach children how to budget and shop, skills that could be passed along to parents.
Other ideas that didn’t make the top five but were intriguing included: hosting community events in your parking lot to drive traffic; establishing a party registry similar to a bridal registry; enabling employees to hand out “surprise” discounts and coupons in-store; and running cross promotions with local groups.
While other retailers may be more interested in online marketing, social media, mobile technology, etc. it seems that local grocers are more inclined to engage with their communities, improve in-store service, and keep their quality and prices right.
(Source: RetailWire.com, 02/06/09)
