Market District, eager to find quality local suppliers, has a fairly simple system to bring in new suppliers. Can the grower provide enough produce to supply three local stores at a reasonable level during the season? Is its quality up to snuff? If it meets the requirements, the local supplier is given the star treatment during the launch. That can come in different forms, from being placed in prime locations like end caps (shown here), to launch parties and/or advertising. It's a win/win. The new supplier gets much needed exposure and its best chance of being established, and the store proves to its customers that it's dedicated to supporting the local economy.
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2. Explain What Common Terms Mean For You
There are a lot of terms we take for granted that can have many, many definitions. Like "shade plants," "locally grown" can mean different things depending on the degree. Are shade plants best situated in complete shade? Or shade for 60% of the day? Are locally grown supplies from the U.S., the state or only nearby? In the sign on the back wall, Market District spells out it's definition of locally grown: produce grown within 150 miles of the store.
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3. A Pallet Bench Elevated With Good Construction
Is this the next phase for the pallet trend? Instead of using only pallets in its construction, Market District's bench supplier combined finer quality lumber with pallets to create a more polished-looking table.
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4. Kids Activity List Invites Parents To Shop
The Market District has a daycare that has scheduled, kid-friendly events, such as movie nights and a weekly craft project. These events are timed to pull in parents for specific lengths of time. The movie night will allow parents to sit at the pub, attend classes and so on, while the week's scheduled craft will take long enough to allow parents to shop without trying to outpace children's attention spans.
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5. Good Lighting
When you retail in a greenhouse or in the open air, good lighting can be hard to create. But today's lighting choices offer retailers more options than ever before. Throughout Market District, benches had internal lighting to spotlight the products, even though there were plenty of tract lights above to illuminate the area. That extra level of lighting made fruit, peppers and any thing else in the cases seem important and desirable.
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6. The Market District Man Is Used Throughout The Store
Market District employs two full-time graphic artists to handle the visual merchandising, and the extra effort showed in consistent signage throughout the store. One of team's inventions was this figure the tour group dubbed the Market District man. We saw him again and again throughout the store.
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(6. con't) The Market District Man In The Sweet Shop
The Market District Man in the sweet shop.
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(6. con't) The Market District Man In Outdoor Produce
... and in the produce department
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7. Employee Traffic Control
Market District probably stole this idea from the restaurant industry, so it's a fitting idea for garden retailers to steal it from the grocery store. During the busiest of times, it's important to get employees organized to reduce injuries while carting heavy carts or boxes. One door is only for those going into the back area, and the other is exclusively for those reentering the store.
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8. Consumer-Friendly Combo Gardens
There were a lot of consumer-friendly ideas at Market District, including its combo herb garden area. These herbs, Market District says, will help stave off bugs. Nothing else is on this label other than the price. There is a tag that gives more care instructions, but the price tag has only what a shopper needs to know in order to decide if they want it or not. Everything else is another layer down once interest in the product has been established.
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9. Common Sense Services
Refrigerated cases are expensive to run, so stores typically limit the number of wine bottles placed there. But what if someone on their way home or to a dinner party wants a different wine chilled? This instant chiller solves that dilemma. Which services can garden retailers provide that solve similar level problems? A choice of decorative sleeves at check out that can transform a nursery-pot plant into a gift? Pre-cut herbs ready to use?
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10. Signs That Help Make Decisions
Eating a new pepper is a little like Russian roulette. You never know if it will be tasty with a zing or will blow off the top of your head with heat. This heat chart helps take some of the risk out of buying a yet-to-be tasted pepper. This same concept would work well in several garden store settings – shrub height, plant lighting, watering charts and so on.
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Bonus: Smart Cross Merchandising
Market District has an extensive wine and beer department, complete with a pub. In keeping with the importance of this department to the store as a whole, it set up more elaborate cross merchandising.
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1. Locally Grown Suppliers Get A Boost
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2. Explain What Common Terms Mean For You
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3. A Pallet Bench Elevated With Good Construction
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4. Kids Activity List Invites Parents To Shop
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5. Good Lighting
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6. The Market District Man Is Used Throughout The Store
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(6. con't) The Market District Man In The Sweet Shop
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(6. con't) The Market District Man In Outdoor Produce
Today’s grocery stores bear little resemblance to grocery stores of my youth. They’ve evolved from florescent lights, dingy linoleum floors and long lines at the check out into a food wonderland. Lighting on produce is as meticulous as a museum drawing attention to a multi-million dollar Picasso. The range of products has changed, from locally sourced fruit and vegetables to elk roasts in the meat department and previously hard-to-find spices that seem to show up in all the popular modern recipes. And it’s not unheard of to find juice bars, live bands and even pubs at today’s grocery stores.
It begs the question. How much have farm markets changed since the 70s and 80s?
In 2015, I visited one of the newest Market District stores, the higher-end division of the Giant Eagle grocery store chain. The slideshow contains 10 ideas from a Columbus-based Market District you can use in your own store.
October 9, 2015 
![Take a Tour of Janoski’s Farm [Slideshow]](https://www.growingproduce.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vegetable-fields-at-Janowskis-Farm-FEATURE-300x169.jpg)
