Professionals buy from professionals at wholesale stores. Restaurateurs have different needs to retail industry customers and the wholesale industry takes this into account. METRO is transforming its existing stores: Let’s take a look at a few METRO stores to see how this is being done.
It’s all about quantity. Restaurateurs often need products in large unit sizes. That’s why you can find large containers by the pallet in wholesale stores, like here at the METRO store in Karlsruhe, Germany. The benefit of this is that large quantities are cheaper at the purchasing stage, and you save on packaging. The containers are also designed to make them easy and quick to load and open. The saving is also passed on to the customer: with the highly-visible bulk price offer. The principle is that the more products a customer buys, the cheaper the individual price.
Time is money in the hospitality industry. That’s why it needs to be quick and easy to find products. The MAKRO store in Barcelona, Spain, shows us how to do this: clear shelf displays, highly-visible goods and large aisles with signage make it easy for restaurateurs to navigate the store and its products.The customer’s journey through the store is made easy too. In wholesale stores of the future, professionals can find everything they need for their menu in one place. For a burger, the shelves stock everything in the same place, from the burger buns to the sauces.
Lots of restaurateurs want to go into a store, find the products they need and get to the checkout straight away. That’s because preparations are often already in full swing back at their restaurant. The customer doesn’t need any distractions in the store. With compact large containers, the wholesale industry therefore focuses on essential items, like the Karlsruhe-based store in Germany. And if you need to shop even more quickly: you can use Scan and Go at the self-service checkouts, like here at the Lyon-Gerland store in France.
Lots of employees are working hard in the background to make sure that restaurateurs can find everything they need on their shopping trip. Like here at the METRO store in Lodz, Poland. The warehouse colleagues make sure that the store is restocked promptly. Digital tools keep precise records of the stock of inventory and manage this efficiently. Pickers fill any gaps in the store’s shelves multiple times a day to make sure that the goods remain available for restaurateurs.
By 2030, METRO plans to use its sCore strategy to expand the stores into Multichannel Fulfilment Centres. This is how it works: The focus of this change is on the efficient use of the space and warehouses. As such, the METRO stores will resemble warehouses. This enables METRO to offer customers a better service across all sales channels, whether in the store itself, by delivery or the marketplace.