[music]
Joe Rossi>> Hello. I’m Joe Rossi. I want
to spend the next few minutes with you on how to make money selling produce. The first
point is how to display your product when you only have a small space, so let’s go
inside and get started. If I was working with this much space, I would pick items based
on how much are you going to sell, and I would pick items that are low perishability, items
that will hold good for a long period of time on your display. Potatoes is a high volume
item and it actually holds up really well. Onions compliment it, and once again, low
perishability item. Garlic, a complimentary item, carrots, a lot of use in carrots, and
then your fresh fruits, your apples, your oranges, and your bananas. All these things
are year round items. To add some fun to your display, if you have room, and either that
your customers might like, or add some seasonal items, the green beans are actually a seasonal
item. Those are really good during the summer and strawberries. Adding strawberries and
these items will actually create a lot of life for your display and promote overall
volume and help you make money. In determining how much to buy, always try to buy in full
units. When you buy in a full unit you can ensure the best price point to make the most
money. And if you’re worried about storage space, I’ll show you some clever storage
ideas later. On where to buy your fresh fruits and vegetables. I’d start with your existing
vendors, somebody might be delivering fresh fruits and vegetables already that you’re
working with. I would also try your club type of stores, you might have a local Costco or
United Grocery Cash and Carry that will offer advantageous price points at near wholesale
prices. But a really fun one is to visit your local farmers’ market, there’s a lot of
farmers who would love to sell to a store and have some weekday sales, so if you make
relationship with somebody, that could be a real good source of supplying fresh fruits
and vegetables to your customers. As an example on what we would actually price something
out at, if apples are 25 cents each, then we times three, that’s 75. If the apples
are a bigger size you could even round the item up to a dollar, or drop it two for a
dollar. Averaging out prices and arriving at a single denomination like a dollar makes
it really easy for the people to grab a few items, especially if you do that with your
whole display. I always use this method, it’s wholesale times three, it’s really common
in the retail food industry and it sounds like maybe you’re charging too much, but
you’ve got to take into account justifying the space that the stuff takes up in your
store, everything has to make money. Two, you are going to have some shrinkage in amount
of product that you can’t sell, and, three, the whole goal is to make a small profit so
that you can continue to serve your community and your customers with fresh fruits and vegetables.
When I was first starting retail, I, of course, I had a tendency to want to put things on
sale, because I needed to sell them faster or had a lot of product and I wanted to move
it. So I put things on sale for half price. But what I quickly learned was when you do
the match, when you sell something for half price, you have to sell twice as much of it,
and at the end of the day I actually made less money and the side effect also was the
customers got used to a cheaper price. So I’ve quickly learned that to be successful
and to actually make money selling produce, you should maintain an average price point
and don’t put things on sale. Customers like to feel like they have a full display
to pick from and they have first pick. So you’ll always want to group your items up
heaping full and you want to project abundance. No some clever ways to do that so you don’t
have to actually display a lot of stuff is your baskets are low, so there’s a lot of
ratio between product that the customers see, and what’s in the basket, and you can even
pad up the bottom of the basket, not only does this reserve your product from getting
bruised, but it also projects abundance. You can take the same amount of product and have
it heaping full, or you can have your display level, but always keep things heaping full.
One other aspect of a really good display that will help sales is adding a vertical
dimension. Even on a display like this, even though it’s on a table, you will notice
that I stepped it up from low, medium to high heights. That actually makes it more impactful
because from a distance it’s more viewable, and once again, the feeling and look of abundance
in the baskets, not just crown baskets, but as stepping up in the back. One other clever
idea, if you have a corner, you’ve got a nice vertical floor display that steps it
up, takes less space and actually adds more dimension and elements in your produce display.
And I always try to visualize my product as on a flow from your storage area, to your
retail space, to your customer basket, and out the store. So if you keep it flowing it
makes you more money. And there’s some pitfalls to stay away from. The first one is don’t
display bad product. You really want to take product off your display that isn’t a good
representation of what you’re selling, because you’ll restrict product flow. I call it
clogging the pipe and you don’t want to clog the pipe, because if you clog the pipe
everything here is going to age. You want to keep it flowing, keeping it flowing keeps
it fresh. My dad growing up through the depression, and me as a young man growing up on the farm,
and doing retail, I noticed my dad would like to put things on top of the display, he would
want to sell fast. But if you put something on top of the display that doesn’t look
that good it’s going to be a reflection on your whole display. I notice at the end
of those days we actually sold quite a bit less of a certain item, and you certainly
will sell less overall, because it, once again will be a reflection of everything on the
display. My daughter, Gabrielle, now that we have retail staff, she’ll tell people
on our staff, “If you wouldn’t give it as a gift and be happy with it you should
really have it in your display.” At the end you will actually make more money taking
some product out of your displays. One idea that I’ve learned that’s really effective
is bagging certain items. Bagging items does a few things, one is it increases your rotation.
You can take a few items off the top that maybe will go bad in a few days but are really
good now. You put them in a bag and you can maintain your price point and have a slight
discount for the bag. Bags are preferential to a lot of customers. In fact, I noticed
that bags will out sell bulk sales three to one. And there’s a few reasons for that,
one is the product looks and is perceived as being untouched to the consumer, it’s
more convenient, people can grab it and go. The combination though of bulk and bag actually
increases overall sales because more people are actually apt to buy a bag if there’s
a nice bulk display in front of it. So the combination works really good together. Other
ideas to keep your display looking nice and increase product flow are samples. Samples
greatly enhance sales, sales will double or triple with sampling. Also, you might want
to share some of this with your employees, not only will your employees like you, but
they’re going to benefit by increased product knowledge and willingness to engage your customers
on ideas and things to do with the vegetables. Last, we’ve already precalculated our shrinkage,
which is the items you’re not going to sale in a pricing formula, so now that you’re
buying wholesale fruits and vegetables, you can actually bring some home to your family,
because it’s all about keeping it look nice and keeping the product flowing to make the
most money. One area to help you is sales that often gets overlooked is really clear
and concise signage. You really want to have your items displayed clearly marked with prices.
There’s a large percentage of customers that will be afraid to ask for prices and
actually will be less tempted to buy your item. You can also have some fun with your
signs by adding some extra information about the product tastes like, or maybe the local
farmer that produces it. Some general themes are you want to actually keep your signs consistent,
maybe your paper color is consistent, your pens are consistent, and you might want to
think about storing them like I do in a container. I found that if I keep all my sign making
material in one place and clean then I have extra signs ready to go, it really helps me
get the signs up nice and keep them looking good. Also think about having some fun with
your seasonal items, you might want to actually show your customers that the strawberries
are local. If you want to have some fun with signs you might also add some added verbiage,
maybe mention the grower, the farmer, or how the product tastes. And then last, you might
want to include some overall signage, something that kind of captures your space, and lets
people know what’s new and what’s exciting. Now let’s think about protecting our investment
through proper storage and maintaining freshness. There are certain things that you want to
bring in after business hours into refrigeration, and those items typically are your items that
wilt easily, mostly your leafy greens. Here for example, I would bring in the jalapeno
peppers, the local green beans, carrots, some of your fresh fruit, local fruit items, and
to maintain crispness on apples, I actually do like to store the apples overnight in refrigeration.
Also the things you leave out, if you cover them with a cloth it’ll do two things, it’ll
prevent some dehydration overnight and it will also keep the light off the potatoes
which are light sensitive and will turn green if left exposed.
All fruits and vegetables suffer age through dehydration. So even items we bring in refrigeration
at night should be hydrated really well and kept moist. We can accomplish that through
damp cloths over the top, restricting some air movement, and also using sealable containers.
Sealable containers are nice, because they maintain their moisture and you’ll also
want some separation between your items that produce ethylene gas. Most of those are your
fruit items that will actually turn your leafy greens and like items yellow over time. Even
things like the green beans, I would keep in a sealable containers and separate. Now
that you have something finally exciting, think about sharing it with your community.
Have an A frame sign outside of your store that advertises fresh fruits and vegetables,
but be specific, because if you have something that says fresh local strawberries, that’s
more apt to get customers in your store. And also engage your customers, ask them for items
they want to see and actually listen for items when they mention they are looking for something.
Also build anticipation, if you have some signage that says, “Fresh local corn is
coming soon next week,” you actually give them a reason to want to come back and think
about returning as a returned customer.