By Max Jenvey of Oxxygen Marketing Partnership, a strategic business accelerator specialising in the bakery, foodservice and convenience retail sectors

If we only knew exactly what our customers want, we could grow our business by double digits. Actually, we already know quite a lot, as groups of hungry customers think in similar ways when they enter a bakery, café or food outlet.

There are three key factors to consider delivering shoppers value, getting the space and range right and maximising the occasions. Value for money is vitally important, as customers have so many choices in today’s market always communicate and promote with your freshness messages, brands, meal deals and multi-save offers. Remember to group similar items together, as customers often don’t find the products they are looking for asking, for example, "Where can I find the juice, with the milk or next to the soft drinks or somewhere else?" Equally, arrange your hot display from your lowest price-pointed item to the highest; use the classic retail technique trade your customers up by the range!

In-store communication and point-of-sale material can help our customers to locate the categories or products they are looking for. Think of your shoppers’ missions and need states, such as breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacking. If you know and satisfy your customers for each occasion, more shoppers will spend more money with you and visit more frequently. Jo Chapman from PepsiCo told us that, at lunch time, for instance, you can achieve a 40% sales uplift on your sandwiches and other bread products with juice and crisps/snacks, just by ranging these products within the same chiller.

In order to drive the lunchtime occasion, chiller baskets and clip solutions can help customers to purchase more and to grab more than one product in one go. With a range of secondary display solutions for crisps and snacks, you can get more out of your space. And remember, you can range crisps directly in your chillers without compromising their quality.

Apart from value for money, range and product location, customers also value staff friendliness, short queues and good availability. Just take some time to look at your offer with your shoppers in mind.