Coming Full Circle

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – On this week’s episode of Convenience Matters, “A Conversation With Loop Neighborhood Markets,” NACS hosts Jeff Lenard, vice president of strategic industry initiatives, and Carolyn Schnare, director of strategic initiatives, discusses what makes the chain work with Dr. Varish Goyal, president of Loop Neighborhood Markets, and Pervez Pir, COO of Loop Neighborhood Markets.

The Silicon Valley, Calif., chain has worked hard to disrupt the traditional convenience store model. “Loop is about closing the loop,” said Goyal. “We felt the community needed a place to get convenience, health and indulgence [items] all at the same place.”

Loop has traditional convenience store customers who buy the traditional c-store items, but the chain has also grown its target consumer group—female millennials and Gen Xers. “We looked at who do we have currently coming into our stores and seeing where the gap is between those and our [target] consumer group,” said Pir.

With that in mind, company leadership worked on how to design the stores to appeal to that target customer. “We wanted the customer to feel when she walked in that it’s a neighborhood store, it’s a family store,” said Pir. “We want you [as the customer] to have fun and smile” while shopping in our stores.

With fresh popular with consumers these days, Goyal also offered three tips to retailers considering their own fresh and healthy foodservice program.

1. The store has to look as fresh as the food.
2. Messaging must be consistent both inside and outside the store.
3. Your team members need to be committed and excited about the program.

Each week a new Convenience Matters episode is released. The podcast can be downloaded on iTunes, Google Play and other podcast apps, and at www.conveniencematters.com. Episodes have been downloaded by listeners more than 60,000 times in 80 countries.