Our second grocery store was H-mart down on Eardley Street in Edison. Similar to Fresh Grocery, H mart is also a new grocery store that has a relatively short history. But though there are other grocery stores in the area of Edison, non of them can be compared to H-mart. Distinctively, H-mart positions itself in the Asian market and provides generic Asian services and product mostly, but not exclusively, to Asian customers. Many other grocery stores do not have the purchasing power to buy from wholesalers in bulk nor provides the same kind of good and services as H-mart would. Though this idea does not coincide with the ones of Paco Underhill put forward that retailers compete with one another by stealing one another's customers, since H-mart basically have no direct competition in the area. However, it does provides a lot of insights about it’s successful market positioning and allocation that we could learn from. While H-mart is rather more expansive that Fresh Grocery, it is still affordable to most customers and products could still be bought in large quantities; with probably zero stock out. The store carries large inventories and a suitable product mix, coupled with the stellar services it provides that makes all customers satisfied with a conversion rate of 100 over 100. Another advantage H-mart hold over other grocery stores is its location. The store is located just next to the highway and is only a 10 to 15 minutes drive from the campus. The are restaurant right next to the store so when people finish shopping, they can just grab something to eat. A lot of people work in this area of Edison would just come by, pick up some groceries and then get a bite in the restaurant next door. The interception rate at the store: the percentage of customers that have some contact with an employee, was a lot higher than expected. Though most grocery stores aren’t the perfect environment for such criteria, and many of the employees are busy walking around, restocking and replacing older goods with new ones, some would actually stop by and ask customers if they needed any help. If any customers does come in contact with them, they would stop what they were doing and provide their assistance to the best of their abilities. A similar experiment was also conducted here and within a few minutes, due to the lords will, a assistant walked by and actually asked us if we needed help. Despite the fact that we intentionally neglected the signs and tried our best to give her a hard time, She showed us where the product was, lead us there and left us with a big smile on her face. Once we went to checkout, though the lines were long, it was a pretty efficient and smooth process and we got out in no time. With all that being said, u could guess why we walked out there with a smile of ourselves, the service was just that terrific. H-marts success is well deserved and it comes from the various details and effort of employers put to train their employees to enhance customer shopping experience. It is then no surprise that when we asked out friends about naming the first Asian grocery store that comes to your mind, they all said H-mart.
A short and simple transition zone is built to keep the customers momentum going. There are no direct barriers to stop customers from coming in to the entrance, in which you will find the shopping carts and baskets. Though they could have followed Paco Underhill advice scattered the baskets throughout the store, which the H-mart also failed to do, it was the right choice not to do so. People often forget about the fact cultural attributes have a heavy influence in an individual’s decision making process, and different from Fresh Grocery, H-mart serves primarily to Asian customers who the majority of them, have a cultural perception of liking to have the carts in one place instead of scattering them around. If it would all around the store, the customers would probably be confused and would