Effie Case Study: From Big Box to Food Boutiques

Executing a complete retail reinvention that reversed five years of year-over-year sales dips, Metro Market, a division of Kroger, overhauled the big box design of one of its stores into a specialized, artisan shopping experience. The Metro Market test store outperformed all other stores – by 4% in sales, by 64% in weekly store visits and by 60% in items per cart.The impetus to change the Metro Market in Wisconsin was striving to get younger shoppers. Internal research clued into how area Millennials liked to shop, learning that they would shop four or more stores regularly and buy fewer items at each location. The Wisconsin Millennial shoppers also sought more culture and adventure in their shopping experience; therefore, the new Metro Market design brought a more modern, reenergized look and feel. The specialty departments became elegantly designed with micro-shopping experiences that felt similar to shopping multiple stores.The departments felt crafted and local, with specific identities, feeling more like an open market than a big box grocery store. The departments leveraged signage, stickers, clings, packaging, butcher paper and bags to build out the individual brands of each department. Kroger leaned on owned-media platforms to deliver digital engagement such as an email program to loyalty members and its social media pages.For the Metro Market store, sales had declined by more than 20% over the last five years, and Kroger set goals for the new design to significantly increase sales among younger shoppers, grow total shoppers and total baskets. In the end, between a period of August 2016 and June 2017, the Metro Market redesign saw much higher results. The weekly store visits from shoppers were more than 60% vs. the goal of 30%; the total baskets were up 64% vs. the goal of 30%; and the combined sales increase for the deli, meat, bakery and specialty cheese departments exceeded 3% vs. a goal of 2%.

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