Lessons About Community Learned From My Local Supermarket

Building a community around your business is difficult. Regardless of your industry, to lead the pack seems like a great and horrendous challenge. While I can’t turn it into a one-two-three process, I did realize something about communities while shopping at my local supermarket, Sav-a-Lot. I don’t know a lot, but let me share this little story with you.

Sav-a-Lot is not a one-store mom and pop shop, not anymore at least. It’s also not Wal-Mart Corporation huge. This particular brand is successful at building a community around it. In my case, it’s the only place I can buy my energy drinks (two a day, no more, no less), so I end up going there. Every. Single. Day. That’s one part of building a community we can all agree with: have a product or service others deem important or necessary.

So, I’m already heading into this supermarket every morning. My fiancé usually has a small list of items she wants me to pick up along with my drinks. Using coupons and doing basic math, she finds deals on items she would otherwise spend more on before driving home from working at Walmart. So we could say that part of building a community is: extending value beyond your own four walls.

I pick up these items, but sometimes my favorite flavor isn’t in the fridge where it’s supposed to be. Sometimes, I simply pick a different flavor, but other times I’m feeling selfish and ask one of the workers if there are any of my flavor in the back. And here is where our community-building story takes off. See, the first time I asked this, the employee looked at me, annoyed at the interruption (really dude, there’s three other flavors, come on). But, they went in the back, grabbed my two cans of preferred flavor, and went on their way. Aside from a look, there was no blow-back for my request. I understood that look, because I’ve given it to retail customers myself. In other words, and I’m not saying you should work for free, but this employee performed an extra task with little to no retaliation.

Being that my typical load is less than five items, I get annoyed when I’m behind a customer that just bought everything in the store. However, I also know that my timing was wrong. Had I left for the store 15 minutes earlier, I could be ahead of the crowd. So I never whine about being behind. A lot of times, a non-clerk employee will pull me to an empty register and help me out. I always make sure to tell them thank you. They smile, and tell me to stay safe or some other positive message.

But just yesterday, I realized a full exchange has happened between this store and myself. I had just pulled into the tiny parking lot, and an older gentleman with a full cart was not even off the sidewalk yet, but crossing the roadway. I had time to pull through without endangering the man, or anybody else, but I stopped and let him pass. Why? Because he was old? Because I’m not as alpha as other men? Maybe, but that doesn’t explain some actions I’ve taken in Wal-Mart’s parking lots.

When my hands aren’t too full, and I see a cart out of place (in-store or in the parking lot), I get them out of the way for others, people I will never see and will never know a non-employee took care of something. Why? It’s not for ego.

I don’t spend a lot of time smiling or trying to impress people outside of my writing and artwork. But, when I’m at Sav-a-Lot, I smile a lot. I laugh too, even at the bad jokes employees and other customers say. Am I just being a different person in public, for the people of Sav-a-Lot? Well, yes…but only because the store and its employees let me feel like I belong there. And I think, as a hustling freelancer, as a busy artist, as a person who knows how hard it can be to build a community, that this last part is the most important part of doing so.

Have you had trouble, or success, building a community around your company or brand? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear your story!

Quick Recap

·       have a product or service others deem important or necessary

·       extend value beyond your own four walls.

·       perform an extra task with little to no retaliation, though not for free

·       never whine about being behind- everybody starts further back than someone else

·       help me out- or I won’t want to do anything for you

·       always make sure to say thank you

·       tell me to stay safe or have some other positive message

·       let me feel like I belong here

James Neal writes fantasy, both novel-length (Of Blood and Blade) and shorter stories (Paints the Invisible Eye).

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