Luring in locavores
Posted: Jun 10, 2010
Entrepreneur.com has details on an interesting study that aims to explain why shoppers choose to frequent local shops and buy locally made products. Not surprisingly, people like helping out their local economies and enjoy getting to know the storeowners on the other side of the counter. But the blog post goes on to point out that while interest in shopping local is continuing to rise, some businesses that should be benefiting are wasting the opportunity.
A few suggestions from the post that many café owners would be wise to consider:
• Actively engage buy-local fanatics by setting up talks and movie screenings at your establishment.
• Make sure your location is open when your target audience will be walking by your door.
• Offer customer service that’s as personal as it is efficient.
You could say independent coffee and teahouses were pushing the consume-local idea before it was even an idea. It’d be a shame for those same shops to miss the hordes of shoppers that are suddenly looking for the type of service and business philosophy that cafés have promoted for decades.
--Dan Leif
