Community Foods Market is looking for a boost in the community. In the West Oakland grocery store, sales have declined by 35% since December 2020. To counter the decline, the market has launched a Save Our Store (SOS) increase campaign.
According to the founder and CEO of Community Foods Market, Brahm Ahmadi, there are both fewer customers who shop, and those who do come in buy less.
“We’ve seen regular customers go from complete shopping carts to hand baskets and now only a few items in their hands,” Ahmadi said in a video released with Sharon Rance, a store supervisor.
Ahmadi attributes the decline to two main factors. The first is an inconvenience that some customers experience being in a public place during a pandemic. According to Ahmadi, many of the customers of Community Food are elderly and under immunity. The second is that financial pressure due to an economic recession enables customers to reevaluate their budgets and shift their shopping habits to larger corporate stores to save money, or because they believe it will reduce their own expenses.
“I believe that many people who are under financial hardship return to shopping in corporate stores due to misperceptions and misconceptions that they can save it,” Ahmadi said.
Ahmadi points out that any grocery bill must also calculate the cost of transportation, which could mean an additional charge if the customer has to pay for gas or transportation. The further a customer has to travel, the less they are going to save, even if the proof of sale indicates otherwise.
“I believe that many people who are in financial distress return to shopping at corporate stores due to misperceptions and misconceptions that they can save it.” – Braham Ahmadi
Ahmadi also claims that Community Foods regularly compares prices with competing competitors – Target and Pak n Save in Emeryville and Sprouts on Broadway in Oakland – to ensure that prices can remain competitive with chain retailers.
“Yet there is a misconception that we need to be more expensive as we are a small business and an independent grocer,” Ahmadi said. “It’s disappointing, but it’s not surprising. This is fairly common and predictable behavior during more difficult economic periods. ”
The decline in shopping has led to a slew of financial dominoes. Due to lower sales, Community Foods Market had to buy in smaller volumes and at higher prices from wholesalers. To keep retail prices competitive and affordable for customers, the market had to lower its profit margins and look for other ways to save costs, including letting more than a third of their staff go.
Ahmadi is straight with the diagnosis. If the community market is unable to return to sales in November 2020 or earlier, it is doubtful whether the store will survive the summer. Hard news for any business, but especially for Community Foods.
The grocery store, located at 3105 San Pablo Avenue, was not just a way to make money or bring work to West Oakland, though it does both. It was seen as a way to bring fresh, nutritious and affordable food to a collection of neighborhoods – McClymonds, Hoover-Foster and Clawson – that had not had a full-service grocery store for more than 40 years.
Ahmadi did just the footwork for a decade to make a grocery store possible, and then almost another decade to open Community Foods. The business opened in June 2019. If you lose the store after less than two years and 20 years of work, it could be 40 years back.
This is something Ahmadi wants to avoid with an awareness campaign, in which he asks customers to do their shopping at Community Foods Market at least once a month – in person or online – and to do the same to five people they know. Boosters are also encouraged to spread the word on social media
Customers can also get reference cards that they can give to friends to fill out and download at the store. Each referral card serves as an entry ticket for a weekly drawing of a $ 200 gift certificate, which the store will do for six consecutive weeks, for six separate winners.
It’s not a fundraiser, even if it’s a gift, and Community Foods also has a GoFundMe page where people can donate money as well. The SOS Stimulation Campaign is more of a common promise. A plea for customers to show their values with their dollars.
“Our goal is to bring people back to the store to see that CFM is indeed well priced,” Ahmadi said. “If that happens, I believe enough people will call back to put us back on track.”