This is one of those stories that doesn’t really have anything to do with food retailing…except that it illustrates an opportunity that many food retailers may be ignoring:
Borders Books announced that it has opened a 1,952-square-foot bookstore/cafe in a Newark International Airport terminal, and will open a larger 3,429-square-foot Borders bookstore/cafe in another terminal there next January.
Borders Books announced that it has opened a 1,952-square-foot bookstore/cafe in a Newark International Airport terminal, and will open a larger 3,429-square-foot Borders bookstore/cafe in another terminal there next January.
- KC's View:
-
Y’know why? Because Newark Airport happens to be someplace where there are a lot of people who might need books and coffee, and Borders figures that it is in the business of selling both.
We’ve traveled maybe a half-million miles by air over the past twenty years of our career, and have been in dozens, maybe hundreds of airport terminals. And despite the fact that many supermarkets feature excellent prepared foods operation, as well as extensive grocery selections, we’ve never once ever seen a supermarket outlet in an airline terminal.
We’re not talking about full-service supermarkets. We’re talking about an aggressive retailer cherry-picking from the products and services that it offers, and then figuring out a way to sell them in a high-traffic location like an airline terminal.
Sure, it seems a little off the wall. But in a time when there is competition coming from all directions, why not? It seems to us that it simply makes sense to seek out virtually any high-traffic venue and find a way to sell food to people there.
