Ethnic Retailing Series: Kam Man Food

Kam Man Food

RNG forecasts multiculturalism to be one of the big transformations in food retail over the next decade due to the changing demographics in North America. This time, I visited Kam Man food, one example of a leading ethnic retailer that retailers and suppliers can learn from. Kam Man Food gains market share from the ethnic supermarkets in Chinatown by catering specifically to the Asian-American community in the suburb. With abundant parking in place, Kam Man Food provides a solution to the traffic and parking hassles for customers who used to commute to the city for ethnic grocery and home goods.

Kam Man Food excels in ethnic retailing by marketing to both B2C and B2B clientele while offering the right home brands and wide assortment of ethnic merchandises to the diverse Asian-American community.

The 40,000 sq. ft. supermarket entails 60 retail spaces for third party vendors and a general merchandise selling area called the Kam Man Marketplace that features over 20,000 SKUs of imported items. Named as a potential ‘Secondary Chinatown’, Quincy had nearly 3 times more Asian-American population than that of Boston’s Chinatown in 2003.  Opened the same year, the establishment of Kam Man Food in Quincy, Massachusetts reflects the increasing Asian population in the neighborhood and the greater Boston area. Founded by Chinese immigrants 40 years ago, the Kam Man Food in New York’s Chinatown was the very first Chinese supermarket on the east coast of United States.

This week I will detail the following key takeaways from the store tour on In-Store Trends :

• Home Brands and Fresh Ingredients Build Customer Loyalty and Increase Trip Frequencies
• One-Stop Shop for Grocery and General Merchandise Increases Basket Size
• Multicultural Orientation as Localization Effort
• Food and Health Service: In-Store Dinning, Bakery and Chinese Pharmacy

Approaching its ten-year anniversary, Kam Man Food expanded to a 40,000 sq. ft. retail space in Dorchester using the Quincy store as a model. The Quincy store, also the biggest Asian supermarket in New England, uses selection as its leading merchandising strategy. By offering the widest array of ethnic and non-ethnic items at a competitive price, Kam Man Food successfully captures the rising share of Asian immigrants in the country. By tailoring its product assortment and store design to the local community, Kam Man Food demonstrates its advanced retail capabilities of marketing across generations and cultures.

RNG Subscribers can be the first to read the full store tour highlight and browse the photo store tour of Kam Man Food on RetailNetGroup.com.