FastCo's Whole Foods Visual Merchandising article

http://www.fastcompany.com/1779611/priming-whole-foods-derren-brown

This FastCompany article couldn't have found me at a better time....A time when I am dissecting the WF visual brand, trying to understand how they have crafted the customer experience via visual merchandising.

(This isn't a particularly  upbeat article, as the author, slams Whole Foods for using a series of "tricks" to alter customers' perceptions of what they are buying, and the brands they choose. While the article's analysis is interesting, I'm somehow skeptical of his subject of choice, since it feels like he took cheap shots at a widely popular store, just for the sake of buzz and publicity.)

The author points out WF's inspiration in authentic "old time simplicity" stems from outdoor European marketplaces. I can see how. When I lived in Germany, they were everywhere. Each city has a central outdoor marketplace, but one can find fresh fruit & vegetables more easily from daily street vendors selling around a busy corner. 

Here's a deeper look into the European daily marketplace that inspires Whole Foods

The experience that Whole Foods draws from is one that is a personal learning experience for their customers. As an once Whole Foods cashier, I remember that it  was important for us to talk to our "guests" & build a rapport, a relationship, in order to get to know our customers and provide the best service possible. But it really is that chance for Whole Foods to make a lasting impression on customers, just as they are leaving the store. 

Cashiers are the face of the company to customers. And they are also the "experts" to which customers ask their questions and direct their concerns about their purchase, about their "food". Cashiers are equivalent to the farmer's market seller, the expert of food, with whom customers develop a relationship with. No matter how many customers, I still remember specific purchases that were habitually made by the same customers. I got to know them, personally. 

More importantly, the authenticity that Whole Foods eludes to, though criticized in Lindstroms' article, is authentic. They re-create a sense of that farmer's market, and authenticity in their customer service. And it remains that way, as so aptly put by Roger Dooley, because "...brands are only as strong as the products and services they represent".