You Can’t Please Everyone

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

What can it possibly mean when 68 percent of Baby Boomers, 66 percent of Millennials and 62 percent of all shoppers say they want produce departments to offer a “better variety of produce items”?

Surely it can’t mean they want to see more items? Not when a typical produce department carries hundreds of SKUs. Anne-Marie Roerink, principal at 210 Analytics, suggests it must mean consumers want stores to carry the right items. This is surely true, but, of course, leaves open the question of what, exactly, are the right items?

Is it a reference to brands — people want Dole bananas and the store only carries Chiquita or Del Monte? Maybe it refers to packaging – people want Clementines but want a different size? Could it be a reflection of the ignorance of consumers about seasons — they don’t know when some products are unavailable or that retailers sometimes don’t carry items because they don’t taste good? Or could it mean consumers are now super-sophisticated and they know that simply offering black grapes is not enough; they want specific varieties that stores don’t all carry?

Or could it mean nothing at all — just that when you stick a microphone in front of consumers and ask them questions, they feel obliged to say something? And asking for more choice of produce, in a generic sense, is an easy thing to do. I would love to see the next generation of this research focus on asking consumers to elaborate, so if consumers says they want “better variety,” let us see what they say when asked, “what items would you like to see that your produce department does not sell now?”

The truth is this type of research must be reviewed by retailers shrewdly. For decades, consumers have reported their priority is such things as assortment, price, and cleanliness when selecting grocery stores. But precisely because these traits are so consistently and overwhelmingly referenced as important by consumers, retailers have mostly focused on this consumer demand. So the number of supermarket chains that offer dirty stores, poor assortment and uncompetitive prices is few indeed. Satisfying these types of consumer demands has become the cost of entry for being in the business.

This implies that additional investments in these areas may have reached a level of diminishing returns. A large upscale store might carry as many as 600 produce SKUs; it seems unlikely that handling an additional 50 will really increase appeal. If the store is clean, hiring 50 more sweepers will probably have no impact, and if the store is priced competitively, there is probably not much margin available to further entice the consumer.

So if a store wants to attract more customers, it very often must do so by focusing on things that are priorities for a small percentage of consumers but are critical priorities for those particular consumers. In a dramatic sense, we see this with religious requirements. Stores in areas with large numbers of Orthodox Jewish customers will offer a substantial variety of kosher foods, or they will not get this business.

A demand for more assortment is most profitably viewed as a request to serve the needs of specific groups as opposed to a generic request to carry more items. For example, Latino shoppers may want specific chili peppers. The idea is not a broader assortment; it is a more specifically relevant assortment that allows the retailer to capture specific shoppers – defined by ethnic group, household size, age, etc.

Many of these things need to be tested. Are consumers who are asking for cooking demos really asking for help learning how to cook? Or are they reflecting their personal enjoyment of a more experiential shopping environment?

As shopping channels proliferate, specific retailers may want to double down on certain traits. Aldi or Lidl will be tough to beat on price and thus tough to beat in attracting consumers focused on price. But the consumer yearning for experience – chefs cooking in the stores, a cornucopia of assortment, loads of recipes and samples – these consumers may offer an alternative target.

It is hard to keep any shopper 100 percent of the time. Issues of convenience – say shopping near work as opposed to at home – and lifecycle – the same person cooking a fancy dinner party or a single meal for a hot date one week and scrimping pennies the next – all lead to the same people wanting different alternatives at different moments in their lives.

Still, if there is a lesson in this research, it is probably that you really can’t please everyone. When a store with hundreds of produce SKUs is counseled to increase the number, it tells you the store’s planning is too broad. The store would profit by being comprehensive in its offer to specific shopper types, whether it be senior citizens, Guatemalans, Philippinos or single-occupant households. But an intense focus on distinct shoppers is likely to turn a store into the preferred outlet to certain customer types. This specific path leads to customer satisfaction and prosperity for the store.