One of the many things I enjoy most about this time of year is the abundance of locally-grown vegetables available at the city’s many roadside stands. I appreciate that I can stop at lunch or on the way home and pick up a favorite that hardly any people have room to grow in their backyard gardens – sweet corn. Few foods honor summer like an ear of fresh sweet corn, roasted or gently boiled, drizzled with butter and sprinkled generously with salt.
I’ve noticed that the most popular of the stands I visit are located not in a vacant lot but in the parking lots of other businesses, usually gas stations. And as I wait in line to make my purchase, I wonder if these little stands have ever been the subject of a marketing or business class.
They should be. These mini-markets illustrate one of the fundamental principles for creating a successful business: go where your customers are.
The gas station-vegetable stand combos are great examples. They establish themselves in an already popular location, making it convenient to their potential customers. They likely share a small portion of the profits with the station owners in return for a few square feet in the parking lot, creating a valuable and often annual partnership. Coupling streetside signage with highly visible, bright canopies and a cornucopia of color from the displays of fruits and veggies, they pull a steady stream of eager customers off the ample supply of traffic there filling their tanks.
It’s a delicious lesson in marketing that I’ll miss come wintertime.
