Biocoop is a chain of retail stores specialized in organic food. They work on a franchisee model and have numerous stores throughout France. I visited a Biocoop store in Paris to evaluate the customer experience. I visited in December an organic supermarket in New York on Columbus Circle (Whole Foods Market) which I used as benchmark for my evaluation.

Unfortunately I think that Biocoop (and French supermarkets in general) should be inspired by American best practices if they want to create a customer experience. I certainly don’t want to criticize Biocoop. I love their approach and I definitely think that people need a place where they can buy the whole range of organic products. Don’t get me wrong on this. I’m just saying that Biocoop misses a lot of opportunities and may want to dedicate time to think in terms of consumer behavior.

For instance information is not readily available for the products, the way products are displayed could be improved and products, the heart of Biocoop’s business, may deserve to be better presented. Compare the way vegetables are displayed in the two stores: from which one would like to buy? Pretty obvious, isn’t it …

In the end the little efforts Biocoop should dedicate to creating a customer experience would immediately reflect in their sales.