A Man Who’s Going to Save Your Neighborhood Grocery Store

https://longreads.com/2019/04/23/the-man-whos-going-to-save-your-grocery-store/

by elorant • 7 years ago

66 49 7 years ago

longreads.com

shambolicfroli• 7 years ago

Elorant, what is the one short paragraph summary of this article, please?

tropo• 7 years ago

Heh. It's a longreads.com article, which should be a hint.

Basically it's about marketing firms trying to convince supermarket owners that inefficient layout and cute themes will save the day. All sorts of stuff is to be feared: millennials who prefer restaurants or Amazon (and won't age out of it by starting families), the giant Walmart monster, etc.

So make the customers zig-zag around a store, kind of like shopping at JCPenny or Macy's, or maybe even a casino. Take up space with weird stuff, like corrugated steel around the milk to evoke farm nostalgia. Create a mock up of an urban deli, complete with an awning that is hopefully useless under the supermarket's roof.

Evidently people like me are undesirable customers, because I hate all that stuff.

fumar• 7 years ago

Agree sounds more like PR than anything.

DoubleCribble• 7 years ago

You'll probably want to avoid a stop at Stew Leonard's[0] in Norwalk, CT then. Ol' Stew pioneered the concept back in the 60's and it's definitely not for the short on time. The whole store is full of kitschy displays, animatronics, a petting zoo for the kids!, free samples, etc. etc.

But then again, it's the best grocery store to visit if you're a kid (or a kid at heart) and people make it a point to visit from across the country whenever they are in the area.

[0]http://www.stewleonards.com/how-it-all-began/

logfromblammo• 7 years ago

Joining your camp. I go to the grocery to buy food, not cutesy-pootsy marketing kitsch that somehow turns a chore into an "experience". And if the store does stupid stuff to make an identical list of items take longer to buy and transport back to my home than it took before, it is adding time cost to the money cost, while also making the store seem more crowded. It is reducing the value of me going there in the first place.

One thing that really irritates me is "lifestyle aisles". I do not organize my shopping list by whether the food is "ethnic" or "health-conscious". To me, hoisin sauce is not "Asian foods"; it is a condiment. It's the same as Worcestershire sauce, barbecue sauce, ketchup, or mustard. Canned frijoles negros are exactly the same as canned black beans, so why are they in different aisles? If I want Cap'n Crunch and also a gluten-free hippy cereal with a happy gorilla on the box, they should both be in the same aisle. Put the lo mein next to the spaghetti, and the golden syrup next to the sugar, and the matzoh next to the Wasa. I shouldn't have to bounce between different random aisles to complete a shopping list organized by the type of food, rather than by the type of person who typically eats it.

WillPostForFood• 7 years ago

Article has a confusing title, it not about saving your small local neighborhood store. It is about how supermarkets can compete with Amazon, Walmart and online. His idea sounds a lot like Whole Foods, and not a neighborhood store.

The store that resulted is called Harvest Market, which opened in 2016. It’s south of downtown Champaign, Illinois, out by the car dealerships and strip malls; 58,000 square feet of floor space mostly housed inside a huge, high-ceilinged glass barn.

Harvest Market is the anti-Amazon. It’s designed to excel at what e-commerce can’t do: convene people over the mouth-watering appeal of prize ingredients and freshly prepared food.

Since Amazon is Whole Foods, it doesn't sound at all like the anti-Amazon.

PorterDuff• 7 years ago

Exactly. I like the idea of "traditional American supermarket" for the irony content.

When I was a youngin', our town didn't have any chain stores, just a dozen or so family markets.

I miss the culture and environment, not so much the lack of selection. Since then, it's hard to take sides in a Safeway vs Walmart vs Amazon brawl.

The first chain fast food (aside from the ubiquitous Dairy Queen) came somewhat later. That's a thing I think we could do without.

Kalium2• 7 years ago

Having shopped at family markets, I also don't miss their prices.

JohnFen7• 7 years ago

When I was a youngin', our town didn't have any chain stores, just a dozen or so family markets.

Me too. I truly miss those days, and make it a point to shop at the few remaining such markets in my town.

013a2• 7 years ago

The article addresses that: Whole Foods literally contracted the same people between 2003 and 2007. These stores are like Whole Foods in part because they're designed by the same people.

They also mention Niemann's relationship with the Whole Foods CEO pre-sale, and how Niemann didn't believe WF was doing enough to lower prices. Then the recession hit and Whole Foods nearly went out of business.

The anti-amazon part isn't in the design (as already said, the design predates the Amazon acquisition); its in the supermarket's direct relationship with local suppliers.

Animats• 7 years ago

It sounds like Kelly is trying to position his stores as "warm and fuzzy", with a "Mom's Kitchen" section, rather than "opulent", like Whole Foods. “When did you start to mistake opulence for success?”, he says.

Now consider Trader Joe's. They have modest sized stores. They're rather plain. They offer mostly their own house brands. They don't have sales, coupons, delivery, or affinity cards. The prices are reasonable. The quality is OK. Dwell time is low; you can be in and out of a Trader Joe's in ten minutes. Checkouts go fast, partly because they don't have coupons or affinity cards to slow things down.

Whole Foods is chasing the top 10%. Trader Joe's is chasing the top 50%. Dollar General has the bottom 25%.

JohnFen7• 7 years ago

Personally, I tend to do most of my shopping at a regional bulk/budget chain. For produce, I tend to hit up the farmer's market and the neighborhood grocery store (I buy produce on an as-needed basis rather than as part of my scheduled shopping).

Whole Foods is too expensive and unpleasant, Walmart is too unpleasant, and Trader Joe's is too variable in terms of quality -- some of their stuff is great, some of it is awful, and it's hard to tell which by looking.

atdrummond• 7 years ago

I grew up in the town Niemann Foods, Incorporated is headquartered in.

If anything, this strikes me as a response to Hy-Vee's continued growth. Much of Harvest Market takes aims at design themes Hy-Vee has bee pushing for a decade now.

I wish NFI luck but given their struggles in their home market, I'm not sure this is the Hail Mary they need.

013a2• 7 years ago

Fun fact: Shook Kelley also did some research work for Hy-Vee. http://www.shookkelley.com/work-detail/45

rmbryan• 7 years ago

I love this sentence from the article: “I make my living convincing male skeptics of the power of emotions,” he says.

mrweasel• 7 years ago

I live in a small town/village that has just had it's grocery store reopen after it being closed for five years. Based on my experience I don't see any need to radically rethink grocery store, people just need to experience shopping at a small store again.

It's not for everyone, the selection is going to be more limited, but it's so much faster and cheaper. We save around 20 - 25% buy shopping locally, there's simply less random items that go into the cart. While the large supermarkets have 5 minute lines and getting around results in shopping taking at least 30 minutes, the small grocery store reduces our once a week shopping trip to 10 minutes. Generally shopping at the large supermarkets have become extremely stressful, perhaps it always was, but now I know there's a better solution... And it's not online.

Online shopping for groceries currently doesn't work, shipping is to expensive, unless you only shop once a week... I do, but then they don't give me items that will last more than a few days. What am I suppose to do with 5L of milk that only last until Wednesday?

After having tried a small local grocery store I'm not sure I want to go back to the supermarkets.

Scoundreller2• 7 years ago

My chief complaint about the small supermarkets in urban environments is that their produce just doesn’t turn over very fast.

Especially for the larger pack sizes, if they even have them at all.

More generally, Am I willing to save 30% on bread crumbs or soap if it means buying a 6-12 month supply up-front? Yes, that’s a great ROI!

4 or 5L of milk may be a problem (unless you freeze it). But I can go through a 10 lb bag of potatoes if I could only get them fresh.

max765• 7 years ago

More generally, Am I willing to save 30% on bread crumbs or soap if it means buying a 6-12 month supply up-front? Yes, that’s a great ROI!

This depends on the size of your home and the amount of storage space you have. I am generally unwilling to buy a 6+ month supply of household goods because real estate is significantly more expensive than toilet paper.

JohnFen7• 7 years ago

Online shopping for groceries currently doesn't work, shipping is to expensive, unless you only shop once a week...

I tried out Amazon's grocery offering out of curiosity. What made me realize that it wasn't for me was the large boxes that ended up on my doorstep. It was embarrassing and seemed really wasteful to me.

max765• 7 years ago

I live in a dense urban area.

I'd consider my neighborhood grocery stores to be the 5,000-10,000sqfoot places scattered around the area so no home within a three mile radius is more than a 10 minute walk to one. They survive just fine by being cheaper than Amazon Fresh and significantly more convenient than the Walmart/Costco that exist on the outskirts of the city.

diminoten3• 7 years ago

Sure, right up until Walmart builds a Neighborhood Market a block away...

freeone3000• 7 years ago

For me, this is a Provigo, an IGA, and a Metro Express. The Adonis might run into competition, but probably not. A Walmart Neighborhood Market would neither be a strict upgrade nor a strict downgrade to the other chain supermarkets.

max765• 7 years ago

That's a fight we have fought before and won. I'm confident we can fight it again.

notfromhere• 7 years ago

They tried that in Chicago, Wal Mart pulled out like three years ago.

The real threat would be an Aldi, since those guys are cheaper and have a fantastic selection.

learc83• 7 years ago

Since my Vietnamese sister-in-law introduced me to Asian farmer's markets, I tend to only shop at them for anything fresh. Their produce selection is just so much better than traditional American super markets, they actually have a real butcher, and their seafood selection is much larger.

Their produce selection tends to be a lot cheaper than standard grocery stores too because they have separate supply chains and direct relationships with Asian owned farms.

Several local Asian chains have been moving into abandoned super market buildings in my area over the last 5 or 10 years, and I'm starting to see more and more non-Asian and non-Hispanic people shopping at them lately.

opportune• 7 years ago

Yeah, I get all my seafood (except wild pacific salmon, for some reason Trader Joe's has by far the best) from Korean/Thai grocery stores. Great selection on fresh/frozen shellfish and fish.

I think most traditional major supermarket chains have a higher markup on the "fresh things" like produce/meat/seafood but low prices on processed things + eggs + milk. Meanwhile the Asian groceries tend to have a low markup on produce/seafood but high markup on the processed things.

I just need to find a place to get meat and nice-ish cheese (currently stock up on store-brand cheese every two weeks at Trader Joes) for cheap. I don't miss small grocery stores at all, usually they were too expensive with poor quality produce/meat and very poor seafood selection in my experience.

JohnFen7• 7 years ago

Yes, on the whole, Asian markets have it going on!

overcast2• 7 years ago

I'm sorry for all of you that do not have a Wegmans.

EADGBE3• 7 years ago

I'm sorry for everyone that doesn't have a Price Chopper.

overcast2• 7 years ago

You poor soul. I grew up with Price Chopper in my hometown, and found the holy grail in Wegmans when I moved out for college/employment. Wegmans is leagues above them still today.

JohnFen7• 7 years ago

From looking around my city and noticing which grocery stores are thriving and which aren't, I've noticed a pattern. I readily admit that I am judging by how busy they are and have no insight as to their actual profitability. Also, my city seem unusual in that Whole Foods is not particularly popular here. People who would shop there have had better places along the same lines for years before Whole Foods came around, so there were already deeply entrenched shopping habits.

The very high-end grocery stores are doing about the same as they always have. The bulk/budget grocery stores are doing better than ever. It's the ones in the middle that seem to be dying.

I'm not sure how much of this can be placed at Amazon's feet. Amazon's grocery offerings seem to be geared toward the high-end.

nalfien• 7 years ago

I live down the road from Harvest Market. It is nothing special, I'd trade it for a whole foods in an instant. It's just a high end supermarket with a nice seating area.

sjg007• 7 years ago

Grocery is going in two directions: aldi and then Whole Foods/HyVee.

Short order meal prep is where the real money is.. the UK specifically London is a prime example.

EADGBE3• 7 years ago

Do you mention HyVee because of the midwest location of it, or a general employee-owned supermarket/restaurant/prep meal aspect?

sytelus• 7 years ago

Article is about food produce stores, not typical grocery stores that small town have. I think food produce stores are relatively safe still, Amazon Fresh lacks choice, no free delivery and have higher prices. They have to deal with fundamental problem of everything must go before it expires and that prevents offering long tail choice.

However small town grocery stores which sell everything from toothpaste to cereals are in big trouble, I have watched 2 of them getting closed because of lack of customers. A big issue is also lack of smart software that can guide inventory decisions. They usually have ton of things that doesn’t fly off the shelves while customers getting disappointed with not finding things. You would expect these stores to have optimization software that identifies losers and replaces it with better options but they don’t. I would see them consistently run out of some product every Wednesday and not getting it replenished for rest of the week. I would think their software would detect this and get that item more but that would never happen!

They can probably still stay alive if they had smarter software.

A Man Who’s Going to Save Your Neighborhood Grocery Store

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