If you are thinking of opening a salvage food store you should understand that you will not be your customer’s only stop for grocery shopping. At best, you will retain an ongoing shopper who will frequent your store once or twice per month looking for good deals on name brand food items. You are a niche retailer and should work hard to get a visitor to turn into a regular shopper.
In my experience operating a salvage food store the average sales checkout ticket was somewhere between $30-$45.00 per shopper. I found that most of my customers would stop at our store just after shopping at their favorite big box grocery store in the hopes of finding bargains.
One way we increased our average sales per customer was simply adding fresh dairy products into our store including milk, eggs and cheese. We also retailed a nice selection of in date sodas, teas and other beverages. Our thinking was if we provided staple items we would also capture those who may not be thrilled with our selection of salvage food. We had a tremendous amount of clientele who only came into our store for the convenience items.
We also made sure to merchandise a large selection of impulse items leading up to and around our checkout counter. Those that stood in line would always pick something up they did not come in for and if you are well versed in retail, you already know impulse items typically have a larger markup than daily staple items!
