10 innovative ideas for a health food store

I love health food stores and especially the ones where you feel less like you’re on the outside and more like you’re part of the family. In doing some innovation work for a health food store, let’s have a look at ways to experiment with their business model. Ideas include:

• Starting a paid membership program so members can access continually discounted items. The ongoing cost drives engagement.
• Book library service for health books
• Setting up a space for local cooks to create raw snacks from health food store ingredients and they share in the profit
• Setting up a space for cooking demonstrations and health discussions. Make these a paid offering and have them recorded by a high school student. The instructor and the student split the payment. The store can use the video for promotion, for building a library of topics for paid members (see above) or to sell as mini-courses
• Radical transparency. Have the entire business plan, revenue numbers, salaries etc all written in chalk on the walls. Outline where the money goes for every purpose. This transparency becomes promotion to local papers, schools and other entrepreneurs leading to more exposure and community engagement. Tie in with local professionals to use numbers in open nights learning about starting a small business.
• Creating an out of stock app so they can streamline the process when items are out of stock. The app can be used to add to an ordering database (based on suppliers) and the client is notified when it’s back in stock. Client gets a 10% discount on the item. App can also be used to add clients to store mailing list.
• Selling ingredients in bundles based on recipes.
• Allow clients to write on Post-It notes and stick them below the products that they love, explaining why they love them and what recipes they use them in.
• Limiting opening times
• Having storage lockers for wholesale orders. Members get their own key to access locker, increasing buy-in.