Introduction
Grocery stores are mainly found in residential areas and they are particularly useful for individuals who love to cook their own meals and who want to find common household products quickly. They offer a variety of perishable vegetables and meats that consumers use on a regular basis. However, these groceries undergo numerous challenges in a bid to ensure customer satisfaction and high profitability in the long term. The grocery store discussed in this report is located in Galena, Illinois and it has customer traffic of at least 400 customers per day. This store has recently been losing many customers because it has limited parking spaces, its aisles are narrow, and disabled customers are unable to shop properly because most products are out of their reach. In addition, the store regularly offers sampling promotions that generate much traffic but limited sales. The report discusses these problems and concludes that if the store manager rectifies these challenges, the store’s profitability will increase with time.
Challenges with Mobility
The shelves at the grocery store are too high for many disabled shoppers to pick the products that they want to purchase. It forces them to seek for assistance from store attendants or fellow shoppers, thus, it causes inconveniences for the disabled shoppers when they want to spend much time in the store. To avoid such dependence, disabled shoppers avoid the store and instead visit the handicap-friendly ones. This leads to lower revenues for the grocery store because the percentage of visually and physically disabled citizens in the area is rather high. Additionally, the grocery store’s aisles are rather narrow and shoppers are often forced to give way when other people are passing with large shopping carts. Many disabled shoppers have complained that they are afraid of visiting the store because they might accidentally injure somebody with their wheelchair in the narrow aisles.
The store should create a mobile app which disabled individuals can use to select items on the shelves. In this way, the shoppers will create a list of items which they will later find and pay for at the checkout counter. While this might appear to be a costly technological investment, it will boost sales in the long term due to increased traffic. The app will also be a marketing opportunity because no other grocery store in the area offers a similar app. Moreover, the store should reorganize its layout to make more space and to create more room for shoppers to navigate easily.
Challenges with Profitability
The store sells different specialty and traditional foods from a variety of suppliers. It therefore allows the vendors to hold sampling sessions at the entrance of the store or outside. These sessions are regular, with at least 10 vendors offering samples four days a week. It has created much traffic in and around the shop but most of the visitors do not enter to make purchases. Some of them will only stop at the entrance to try the samples and then leave, while others usually obtain the samples, get into the store, and then pretend to look around before leaving. The sampling stations are also often overcrowded and when other shoppers see the crowds, they assume that the store is inaccessible so they go to other shops nearby.
To mitigate this problem, the manager should relocate the sampling stations to the back of the store so that customers can bypass the regular products before they get to the samples. This will attract their attention to any other products that they might need and prompt them to make a purchase. Another option would be to position the stations in premium locations so that customers can see complementary products as they taste the samples. One example would be to place a sampling station for fresh scones near the section for premium coffee or tea bags so that the vendors can recommend that the customers try their samples with an accompaniment.
Challenges with Parking
The available parking space does not cater for handicapped individuals, thus limiting the number of disabled shoppers who can visit the store. There are automated shopping carts for such customers to use in the store but disabled shoppers are reluctant to leave their wheelchairs in unmarked spaces. Moreover, the available parking space is not even enough for all shoppers during peak hours and this forces many potential customers to leave rather than wait for a space to become available.
The store’s management should therefore allocate specific and sufficient parking spaces for disabled shoppers so that they are assured of the same when they visit the store. Furthermore, the store should also provide curb ramps so that disabled shoppers have easier access and entry into the store at all times. There is an adjacent lot to the store that it can purchase and utilize as additional parking space. This will ensure that there are more customers even during peak hours, which will ultimately convert into higher revenue and sales over time.
Conclusion
The grocery store faces some challenges similar to many other stores across the country. However, implementing the proposed solutions is bound to increase traffic into the store and to generate more sales and revenue for the outlet. Further, the recommendations will ensure that the store’s customers remain happy and loyal because they will be obtaining value and a unique customer experience.