Grocery Stores Are Not Warehouses | Accelerate Success with Lorraine Moore

While grocery stores house some non-perishable items to accommodate full shelves, for the most part, the just-in-time inventory practices of the 1980s provide greater efficiency. As a result, grocery stores are designed to receive through their loading docks and transfer to shelves, typically stocking shelves through the night and when customer traffic is lightest.

Now at Walmart, Loblaws, Superstore, Safeway and most other food retailers, you can shop online and pick up at the store. The bricks and mortar retailers have to offer this; they are competing with Amazon, HelloFresh and others.

The problem is when consumers visit the stores to complete their big shop before a long weekend of barbecued dinners on the deck or to pick up some items on the way home from work, when navigating the grocery aisles they are often competing with large dollies, loaded with stacked boxes. These stacked boxes contain the goods requested through online orders. Grocery store staff traverse the aisles with these dollies, creating traffic jams and blocked aisles. It is not their fault. They have a job to complete and a time limit to complete it within.

While these stores are offering more options to us as consumers, some aspects of execution are lacking. This undermines the in-store experience. The outcome of this change is yet to be determined. Will customers stop going into the bricks and mortar stores as often? Or will they choose stores that develop a less intrusive way of fulfilling online orders?

Consumers demand change regularly. Amazon added bricks and mortar locations. Costco offers online shopping and delivery – to non-members. Retailers must offer choice to stay relevant. But the execution, the service to the consumers, must not be compromised to any great degree, lest the business lose the profitability they are seeking.

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