THE SM Store, the department store of SM Supermalls, is offering an in-store coffee experience for customers not only to drive sales but also to elevate the shopping experience.
On Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, SM Store and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL) Philippines, formally unveiled the first CBTL cafe inside SM Seaside’s department store. Soon to follow are the SM Stores in SM Consolacion and SM City Cebu this month.
The Seaside branch is CBTL’s 26th cafe since both parties started rolling out the concept last year in Metro Manila.
SM Store and CBTL eyes to complete the rollout of in-store coffee shops across all 78 SM Store branches by 2026. SM Stores is providing CBTL a space to operate inside its department stores.
The first CBTL cafe at SM Store Edsa opened in December 2022.
“This is to enhance customer experience. For example, husbands can have coffee while the wives are shopping or vice versa. The goal really is to enhance the customer experience inside the store,” said Erich Lim, assistant vice president for operations Visayas, SM Store.
“The trend that we are seeing now is that the younger generation is into coffee and milk teas. Sometimes when they go shopping they are bringing their coffees.”
Coffee shopping culture
According to a Forbes report in 2017, “coffee-shopping” has been a trend overseas like in China that has been disrupting the traditional brick-and-mortar retail experience.
This concept entices shoppers to spend more time in physical stores and this has since been appealing to millennials and even younger generation of shoppers.
The report quoted Jim Joseph, Worldwide President of global communications firm, Cohn & Wolfe, and professor at NYU teaching Master’s courses on integrative marketing, as saying that “Millennials don’t necessarily want to go shopping in the traditional sense of browsing through stores. They don’t want to use their time that way, anymore. They’d rather participate in an experience that’s adding more value to their lives.”
The report added that building cafe-inspired showrooms fosters a culture that enriches the shopping experience, which shows Millennials that retailers are willing to invest in what’s important to them. / KOC