Micro markets have made huge waves across the unattended retail space over the last decade. Operators across the country have learned of their money-making potential, and they have been putting them in five-star accounts to maximize their success. However, many of the most obvious accounts have become saturated and are already serviced by unattended retail businesses.
Savvy operators need to look at smaller or unconventional accounts to grow their micro market business. With the right approach, these smaller accounts can bring huge potential. Here are 4 ways to profitably service smaller accounts:
1. Minimize Your Upfront Cost
A great way to maximize profits is to minimize costs. Investing in a full-size micro market setup can get pricey as coolers, snack racks, and product investments can add up quickly. Luckily, smaller accounts require less up-front equipment. Depending on your location, you can potentially make do with one snack rack, one fridge, and a smaller form kiosk. Often, these accounts have less strict requirements and compact kiosks like the MM6 Mini or PicoMarket can get the job done for less.
2. Use Real-Time Data to Become More Efficient
Outside of decreasing your upfront investment, you can also decrease costs on the service side. With high gas prices, increased labor costs, and potentially distant accounts, the cost to serve a micro market can be high. Anything you can do to reduce your cost to serve can supercharge your micro market profits. For example, you can see live product inventories which means you only need to stock your account when it needs it – eliminating unnecessary services. Plus, a VMS helps you leverage tools for warehouse management, product spoilage, routing, and much more. By minimizing your cost to serve, you can maximize your profits.
3. Optimize Product Merchandising
Let’s look at the other side of the profitability equation – increasing revenues. If you can maximize sales in your micro market, smaller accounts become much more profitable. A VMS has tools that help with this part of the equation, too. With a powerful product merchandising feature, you can see what products sell and which don’t. This allows you to replace slow sellers with high-demand products to boost overall sales. Plus, sales data helps you easily test new products to keep your customers engaged and buying.
4. Provide Other Services
Offer other services outside of micro markets to generate more revenue out of smaller locations. Offer pantry services, office coffee services, or even smart stores. By diversifying your business, you can get more juice out of the squeeze.
With micro markets, traditionally the bigger the account is, the more successful your micro market will be. However, this doesn’t mean you should ignore the smaller ones. If you take steps to minimize your upfront and service costs while maximizing your sales, smaller accounts can fuel your micro market success
