Hello and welcome to this weeks KAMera email, a focus on New York
This week, whilst on away in NYC, we took some time out from the tourist traps and dive bars of Manhattan to visit some convenience stores, from the high end Wholefoods outlets in some of the better neighbourhoods to the not-quite-so-salubrious 7Eleven on the Lower East Side where a homeless man spat on my shoe.
There were a couple of trends that I wanted to discuss today, firstly the “window”. A lot of c-stores in the city have a window that serves one specific thing; coffee, lotto, beer etc. This allows the retailer to serve one group of people quickly and efficiently whilst keeping the other customers inside happy. I saw this working particularly well at an independent on Mulberry who served coffee from their window in the morning, bagels in the middle of the day, and then iced beer at night. Picture below. We know that “speed of service” is second only to “availability” for convenience shoppers, so seems like a good way to keep customers happy.
External merchandising is the next trend I saw popping up all over NYC; fridges with fresh and impulse lines in them, allowing shoppers to “grab and go”. obviously there’s a risk of theft here, but would the wastage be offset by the number of extra shoppers convinced to buy when walking past these external units?
Tonight we are heading to a secret location for a secret wedding present… all very odd but it’s something to do with food and drinks and I’ve been told not to wear heels, apparently we get a text message at 4pm telling us where to be, but other than that, we are totally in the dark. Tomorrow I’m doing a dreaded B&Q run to pick paint for our new office, and Sunday WILL be a day of rest.
