Starbucks Draws In Safeway's Shoppers

Schaumburg, Ill. — Safeway had a center-store problem, according to Chris Almeida, vice president, shopper marketing, core business and loyalty. Its shoppers had fallen into a racetrack mentality, focusing on the perimeter departments.They found the aisles uninspiring, dark and cluttered, and thought they were stocked with unhealthy products, Almeida said in March during a Shopper Marketing Summit presentation. When shoppers needed something from the center store, they’d park their carts at the end of the aisle and run in and out.There was an aisle where shoppers lingered, though. Starbucks Coffee Co., aware that Safeway was looking to improve its center store, approached the retailer with research findings that shoppers spent more than a minute in the coffee aisle, especially when they were buying premium products. “If you think about coffee and your own coffee ritual, it’s probably the most emotive and sensorial category in the center aisle,” said co-presenter Rachel Chambers, Starbucks’ director, shopper marketing and shopper insights. “Only wine garners more time. Unfortunately, a lot of that time was spent searching, not shopping.”Starbucks and Safeway have a longstanding partnership, with Starbucks kiosks in more than 1,000 stores while the retailer’s milk processing plant supplies Starbucks in the Northwest U.S. When Starbucks began manufacturing its K-Cups in 2011, Safeway saw an opportunity to leverage the brand’s success to spur category-wide growth and bring shoppers back to the center store. “We knew the Starbucks icon carried a lot of weight for our shopper,” Almeida said. “We used the brand as a beacon to draw shoppers to the coffee aisle.”Beginning in 2012, the retailer and manufacturer worked with Skaneateles, N.Y.-based ChaseDesign to develop the “signature aisle,” which employs wood paneling and displays providing education on different kinds of roasts. Point of sale messaging, provided by Norwalk, Conn.-based Hunter Straker, is changed out regularly to spotlight seasonal products. A motion-activated scent puffer replicates the smell of bulk coffee and the display includes a counter space reminiscent of what a shopper would find in a cafe or her kitchen at home.Safeway would normally test a concept with shoppers on paper or digitally, and then at an off-site warehouse. “We may put it in and find out it doesn’t do what we wanted it to do,” Almeida said. But for the Starbucks signature aisle they simply installed it in their new Petaluma, Calif., store. Acosta Sales & Marketing, Jacksonville, Fla., monitored sales lift, which was a major concern due to the high price of the fixture.The result was a double-digit sales lift across the category. Chambers said Starbucks learned that shoppers perceived the display as having a relaxed feel they associated with being at home or in a coffee shop and that they were drawn to the aisle by the light, color and Starbucks logo. The lift persisted as the fixture was rolled out to other stores.Despite significant demand for quick execution based on the pilot’s success, the rollout was stalled as the retailer had to alter the fixture to fit the 40 different types of shelving found at its stores. Safeway wanted to put the fixture in more stores than Starbucks had production for. The display can now be found in 200 locations, and eventually it may be found in half of the retailer’s 1,600 stores. Almeida said the experience taught him to “plan for success.”

Starbucks Draws In Safeway's Shoppers

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