Why Millennials Are Abandoning Grocery Stores in Favor of Special Food Shopping Experiences
This week an article in The Atlantic by Senior Editor Derek Thompson addressed the question: Why Do Millennials Hate Groceries? The article caught my attention because it picks up on a trend that I wrote about in my latest book, Shops that POP!, released earlier this year.
According to Thompson, “Today’s shoppers are going out to restaurants more often. But they’re also dividing their grocery shopping among several stores, rather than relying on one supermarket. The hegemony of the supermarket has been broken by the rise of food shopping options, particularly convenience stores, superstores, and online shopping.”
Thompson’s article explains the trend in the context of “Two universal truths about culture: First, many cultural changes for which Millennials are initially blamed really reflect broader trends affecting even the oldest consumers. Second, many cultural changes are really reversions to old norms.” And that is just what is happening today, a return to smaller, more intimate and personal food shopping experiences found in specialty shops.
Thompson continues, “Supermarkets came about as an innovation in an era of ‘mom-and-pop stores, butcher shops, greengrocers and fish markets,’ as the New York Times characterized the shopping landscape of the 1920s. They were beneficiaries of the technologies of their time-cars, refrigeration, urbanization, and working mothers who needed fast and easy meals for their family. But today’s shoppers are springing for options in a market that supermarkets once monopolized. Modern shoppers divide their shopping among superstores like Walmart, supermarkets like Giant, specialty shops for bread and coffee, and online shopping for all of the above,” the article continues
Shops that POP! reveals that regardless of whether you’re selling specialty food or home furnishings, success in retail is less about WHAT you sell and more about HOW you sell it, i.e. the experience you create for your customers.
7 Steps to Extraordinary Retail Success
Shops That POP! explains how small independent food retailers, like Dorothy Lane Market in Dayton Ohio, Feast! in Charlottesville, Virginia, Beekman 1802 Mercantile in Sharon Springs, New York, Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe in Florida, and Kitchen Kettle Village in Gordonsville, Pennsylvania are changing the retail equation by delivering an experience to their customers that giant retail brands simply can’t match.
Find out what you can learn from these and a dozen other merchants who understand the specialty-retail consumer and seem to be a few steps ahead in perfecting the secret sauce of retail success.
