Juice Generation — A Perfect Model For Local Businesses During COVID
COVID-19 pandemic has not only changed people’s lives, but also fundamentally changed the way of business operation. It is difficult to adapt to the new world under the threat of COVID for businesses, especially for local retail businesses. Plenty of local retail shops closed their doors due to the pandemic. Adjusting the structure of selling products and providing service must be put into the consideration of product suppliers and local retailers. Here is a good example for a local store business about how it changed its service model to keep attracting its customers under the influence of the pandemic.
Juice Generation, a primary juice bar brand located in New York, has multiple local stores selling healthy and multi-nutritional beverage products like juices, smoothies, and açaí bowls. It released a offical statement, at its website, to its customers about demonstrating its concern to health and safety issues under COVID. In this statement, it reported that Juice Generation had consolidated its operations to a few stores at New York to reduce risk and listed six adjustments of its local stores as extra precautions of following the highest health and safety standards.
Moreover, it is also worthy to mention the changes in the service model of Juice Generation, from offline to online. The model change takes the crucial role to help its stores keep serving its customers. Juice Generation launched the feature of “Order Ahead” on the JG Supa Dupa Rewards app and online website. Customers can make a preorder at its official app or website to skip lines and reduce the risk of contect. It also provides additional options to offer contactless pickup and delivery through its official app and website.
For customers who prefer to stay at home and keep safe, Juice Generation created a program called blend-it-yourself (BIY). This program offered an opportunity for customers who live outside the city to taste products at home by ordering 6 or 12 smoothies or acai bowls with free delivery. Customers can order smoothies or acai bowls at BIY website and make customized juices at their home.
Juice Generation made their maximum efforts to retain and attract customers with the decreasing sale of offline stores due to COVID. Within these adjustments and service updates, it shows that the guarantee to safety and the convenience of customers are mostly focused by Juice Generation. JG created a great model for local brands about how to serve customers under the influence of COVID. Local brands should change their strategy flexibly to make their customers realise that the COVID is not a problem to stop purchasing.
In the long term, the pandemic will reshape the whole goods market. Because the individuals’ lifestyle has changed with the pandemic, customer behavior will also change with the life of online work and study. According to the report called “COVID-19: How consumer behavior will be changed”, it indicates that there are three long-term trends which differ from previous customer behaviors, “the ever-increasing focus on health”, “a rise in conscious consumption” and “growing love for local”. These new trends anticipate that customers’ needs will currently be centered and localized on the purchase of daily necessities and health products from digital commerce. The digital platform of brands has become the most significant place to promote and sell products. Brands should put more efforts into the improvement of online service.
