Thursday 5th August:
One coffee, one community
The One Village coffee brand has managed to package the essence of ‘a village’ and turn it into a customer experience. The eye-catching packs provide multiple touch-points for customers who want to learn more about the company and get more involved.
Village Coffee uses the world’s highest quality coffee beans, expertly roasted and diligently brewed to create a variety of gourmet espressos and coffee blends.
But Village Coffee is just as much about community as it is about coffee. The inspiration for the name was, in part, the village square that used to be the central gathering place in most small towns across America. And while few towns still have lively village squares, Village Coffee shops are filling the void, providing a warm friendly, gathering place where people can enjoy a warm welcome, hot drinks, and pleasant company.
Via. http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2010/6/23/one-village-coffee.html
Tagged with: Coffee, Community, Food and drink, Retail
Monday 26th July:
You can’t say fresher than that
Subway are freshening things up in their new Tokyo branch – with a hydroponic veg-growing station right in the middle of the store. (Hydroponic is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions in water without soil.) Lettuce will be grown at the Marunouchi Building location, and the company is looking into similar onsite farming projects which can offer different types of fresh produce to customers.
Via. http://www.psfk.com/2010/07/subway-japan-rolls-out-in-store-hydroponic-lettuce-factories.html
Tagged with: Farming, Fast food, Fresh, Retail
Wednesday 21st July:
Hyperlocal produce
If Fortnum’s can keep bees on its roof and sell the hyperlocal honey they produce, it stands to reason that other brands and retailers should be able to follow suit. Enter London grocer, Thornton’s Budgen, which has just begun selling organic produce grown in their own rooftop garden. (Thanks, Wadey, for all things local and random.)
Dubbed Food from the Sky, the rooftop garden project is a collaboration between Thornton’s Budgens, The Positive Earth Project and the local community. In late May, a crane lifted up the necessary materials onto the roof of Budgens’ Crouch End store, including 10 tonnes of compost, fencing, trees and over 100 pallets.
The project is collaborating with the heritage seed library to grow a number of endangered species of food; it also plans to run food-growing workshops on the roof and provide seeds from the harvest free of charge to residents and schools. The garden’s first organic fruits and vegetables just went on sale in Budgens, all grown and harvested by volunteers. All proceeds from the not-for-profit venture will be put back into the project; plans for the future include the addition of chickens and top bar beehives.
As urban areas continue to sharpen their focus on sustainable and local production, it’s not hard to imagine food retailers large and small setting up rooftop farms of their own, buoyed also by consumers’ love for a good ‘still-made-here’ story.
http://www.thorntonsbudgens.com/social-environment/food-from-the-sky
Via. http://www.springwise.com/food_beverage/thorntonsbudgens/
Tagged with: Local, Retail
Monday 19th July:
Fancy a snog?
Hot on the heels of smoothies and juice bars, the latest US craze to hit our shores is frozen yogurt. Frozen yogurt is a healthy alternative to ice cream and has been popular in the US for quite some time. Though an American concept – the US frozen yogurt market is worth a whopping $8.1b (£4.9b) – SNOG uses organic British ingredients and sweetens its products with agave nectar rather than sugar, appealing to both provenance- and health-conscious consumers. (Thanks to Mr Colin Burns for this spot.)
As well as a memorable name, (‘Snog’ comes from ‘snow’ and ‘yogurt’), this fun-loving copy-led brand uses bright pop colours and an edgy typographic style – perfect for a young, bold, urban British audience.
Via. http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/08/28/329505/is-frozen-yogurt-the-new-ice-cream.htm
Tagged with: Food and drink, Healthy, Naming, Retail
Friday 16th July:
The Uniqlo way
Uniqlo, the Japanese clothing company that has become one of the fastest growing retailers in a tough economy, is on top of its game. With innovative advertising platforms and smart use of social media, the brand has increasingly taken notice, and acted upon, the conversational constructs of ‘shopper’ dialogue.
At its flagship store in Soho, New York (its lone American location), Uniqlo has taken its messaging strategy to the sales floor, developing a unique science to the way that its employees interact with customers.
“Every day, at every Uniqlo worldwide, customer advisors repeat what are known as ‘the six standard phrases’, which they are expected to use while on the floor. The advisers pair off, and repeat:
“Hello, my name is Uniqlo, how are you today?”
“Did you find everything you were looking for?”
“Let me know if you need anything. My name is Uniqlo.”
“Thank you for waiting.”
“Did you find everything you were looking for?”
“Good-bye, we hope to see you again soon.”
Each customer is expected to hear at least four of these phrases (of course, with the advisors’ own names!) as they go about their shopping excursion. The second and fifth are repeated because they are required at two points—on the floor, and at checkout.”
Uniqlo’s strategy also includes physical design and aesthetic elements too.
While he was working on the design, (Masamichi Katayama, who helped launch the Soho store) focused his thoughts by making a poster from a photo he’d found of a store in London that had covered a five-storey building with raincoats. And Uniqlo’s Soho store is a surprisingly literal extrapolation of that poster: the store is wallpapered with thousands of Uniqlo items stacked floor to ceiling, arranged in a rainbow of colours. ‘A lot of it is a bit of an illusion,’ says Kiersztan. ‘When you think of stacking up cashmere sweaters, maybe you have 65 colours, but you make it look like you have a thousand by repeating stacks. Or when you walk in, there’s the glass display – we call it the ‘fish tank’ – with 36 spinning dummies, to give the consumer the feeling that there’s a lot to be found.’ When store managers noticed that the towers of jeans sagged at the top, cardboard-backed dummies were inserted on the highest rows.
Uniqlo employees are tested regularly on these in-store action items and executions, even being offered incentives to maintain the official organizational mantra, as evidenced by a poster hanging in all managers’ offices: ALWAYS FOLLOW COMPANY DIRECTION. DO NOT WORK IN YOUR OWN WAY.
Cashing out is a timed art at Uniqlo, too; advisers must complete every transaction in less than 60 seconds. The other week after work, Lauren Venatucci, a manager in the women’s department, ran a cash-out contest. Advisers competed to ring up clothes while properly deploying the six standard phrases. The prize was an iPod, and the winner clocked in at 40 seconds.
While many question the ambition and adaptability to expand across the United States, the blueprint for Uniqlo’s style and sustainability are clearly headed in a new direction.
Via. http://www.psfk.com/2010/07/uniqlos-six-phrase-in-store-strategy.html
Tagged with: Customer service, Retail
Monday 12th July:
From experience to experiments
The Chin Chin Laboratorists – an ice-cream parlour and confectionery shop – is the brainchild of Ahrash Akbari-Kalhur and his wife Nyisha Weber who took inspiration from top chefs, Ferran Adrià and Heston Blumenthal, to do similar things at an affordable level. (Cheers, Laura)
So where a normal ice-cream parlour would have a freezer, instead there is a 180-litre tank of nitrogen, complete with pressure gauge. The liquid nitrogen is hosed into a metal jug before mixing in an egg custard ice-cream mix. Which like magic in seconds becomes ice cream. The results are better ice-cream because when you freeze the mixture instantly, you avoid ice crystals so it is a smoother, denser finish on the tongue.
Chin Chin Laboratorists may be unique in Europe if not the world, but it is also part of a wider trend in Britain. Here ice-cream has long been the preserve of children, but a series of entrepreneurial outlets like Gelupo and Laverstoke Farm (at Selfridges) are attempting to make it more of an adult indulgence, as well as introducing new variations, such as the ice-cream sandwich, which they hope will capture popular imagination in the same way as cupcakes have.
http://www.chinchinlabs.com
http://www.gelupo.com
http://www.laverstokepark.co.uk
Via. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/aac450ce-8560-11df-aa2e-00144feabdc0.html
Tagged with: Food and drink, Innovation, Personalisation, Retail
Wednesday 7th July:
Make it an occasion
Traditionally, supermarkets have organised their products by category. But in an effort to add discovery to the shopping experience, New England chain Stew Leonard’s has chosen to organise their stores by occasions like barbeques or birthday parties.
By doing so, they are curating experiences and pushing new products that customers might not have even known existed. The store also provides entertainment and refreshments along the way: animatronic farm animals kids can play with, flat screens showing live feeds of their own dairy cows, and generous sampling stations.
Via. PSFK Future of retail
Tagged with: Retail
Monday 5th July:
Take a tablet (device)
Retailers are using the iPhone and iPad (and other gadgets of their ilk) to give their customers better service. Installing them in store means customers can personalise their visit, getting information from the web, as well as one-to-one help from the sales staff.
Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts, for example, has announced plans to equip its concierge teams with iPads. That means they can recommend local restaurants and outings to guests, reserve tickets and tables for them and, once all that’s done, help them find their way with turn-by-turn directions.
Via. PSFK Future of Retail
Tagged with: Customer service, Hotels, Retail, Technology
Thursday 1st July:
The big brand and little man
Whole Foods Market is the world’s leading chain of natural and organic foods stores. So why are they working with street-food vendors? The aim is to develop a new ‘Street Eats’ range for their northern California stores, sold in grab-and-go perishable fridge cases or as non-perishable shelf items. World Foods have cottoned on quickly to the street food movement and vendors such as Crème Brûlée Cart’s Curtis Kimball and East Bay cart Jon’s Street Eats have already signed up. http://site.jonsstreeteats.com/
But it’s not quite as straightforward as it sounds. The company’s strict sourcing guidelines is one challenge, which means vendors must use cage-free eggs and hormone-free milk, while new packaging would have to carry UPC codes, and, ideally be made of recyclable or compostable materials. To help them round these obstacles, Whole Foods are putting them in touch with their own approved suppliers or even financing them.
Tagged with: Local, NPD, Retail
Tuesday 22nd June:
From corner shop to cornerstone
Owned and managed by its members, The People’s Supermarket in London’s Lambs Conduit Street aims to cut retail waste almost completely by using produce, property and people’s time in super-efficient ways.
Set up by forward-thinking chef, Arthur Potts Dawson, The People’s Supermarket is a co-operative that plans to help families and local low-income groups by rewarding members with a discount on their shopping. In return, members pay a £25 annual membership fee and work in the shop for four hours every month.
It has all the brands you’d expect to see in any supermarket but there’ll also be an alternative choice of healthy, locally sourced and cheaper products, discounted by membership fees and lower staff overheads. To further support the community’s well-being, the building’s lower levels are being transformed into a nursery with extra spaces for training, cookery and other activities.
Via. http://davidbarrie.typepad.com/david_barrie/2010/06/the-peoples-supermarket.html
http://www.peoplessupermarket.org/
Tagged with: Community, Retail