Inflation is a national issue that affects everyone, from consumers to stores. Nobody wants to overspend, especially with products as necessary as food. In order to make things affordable for buyers without losing profits, many grocery stores are making large changes.
These are the top ways grocery chains are battling inflation and what you can learn from them.
Leaning More Towards Private Label Products
Private-label products are one of the top ways grocery stores are able to make money while helping customers save cash. These are products created and packaged by a third party but sold under their own store-brand name. Often these products are made by the manufacturers of the name brand products, letting everyone have a slice of income from it.
Adding More Self-Checkout Kiosks
One big way stores are cutting back on how much they’re spending is through using a self-checkout kiosk or two. These save employees from having to give customers all of their attention and free up workers to face products, replace items, clean the store, and work on customer interactions when necessary.
Although you’ll still need employees to man these stations and help customers, it’s far fewer than you’d need to run every register.
Shrinking the Size of Products
One of the hottest pieces of grocery news over the last ten years has been how many products have shrunk while maintaining the same price. This has been most readily seen with chips, cereal, drinks, and other packaged goods.
Most buyers don’t notice, but those who do usually get annoyed with the change, leading to them having to buy more often than they do.
Offering More Anti-Waste Options
Food waste is one of the fastest ways that grocery stores lose money and have to deal with making a larger environmental impact. Anti-waste steps are necessary and becoming far more common.
Some stores offer ‘red bag’ deals, like Kroger, which allows customers to buy little satchels of discounted fresh goods like veggies or fruit without having to pay full price. Other stores are partnering with local farms, selling the food waste that can’t be sold instead as feed for farm animals at a steeply discounted price.
These steps allow the store to continue making an income off of the goods without having to worry about throwing away mass quantities of food and goods.
Advertising Coupons and Sales Thoroughly
Coupons can pull customers into the store that they might not have otherwise visited. This can mean coupons for meat, buy-one-get-one-free deals for soda, deals on overstocked produce, and so much more. Discounting still allows the store to make a profit, but they’re able to pull more people in to hopefully buy other things in the store as well.
Someone who buys a discounted pack of chicken they saw in an ad might also decide to pick up fresh potatoes and onions, and spices while they’re already in the store.
Inflation Hurts Everyone
Unless you’re in the top 1% of earners: inflation hurts everyone. This can hurt a store’s bottom line and will leave consumers feeling like they can’t afford to live. As a company, it’s important to help shoppers forget these struggles while they’re in your location.
