F&B success seen in Family Mart Indonesia stores

Fast food and drinks rival grocery sales, averaging 50% of transactions in each store.

People used to travel to big shopping centres with long shopping lists. But today, consumers prefer a simpler approach, buying only what they need at the moment.

This shift in consumer behaviour drives the mini market sector and Family Mart Indonesia keeps their customers engaged by boosting its ready-to-eat food and drinks. “We want to highlight our food, so that when consumers first enter the shop they will see the food menu at the checkout, then the food and grocery area,” Family Mart Indonesia CEO Wirry Tjandra told Retail Asia.

Taking a step back from the conventional convenience store concept, Tjandra said Family Mart is more focused on making F&B their core service in every store. So far, the strategy is paying off with fast food and drinks transactions reaching 50% of store transactions on average.

Highlighting in-store F&B

Family Mart offers an extensive selection of food items, just like at fast-food restaurants. Their menu boasts a wide array of options, ranging from fried and baked goods to delectable soups. You’ll also find an enticing assortment of pastries, cakes, salads, and puddings to satisfy your cravings.

To accompany these delectable treats, an assortment of beverages crafted in-house, including coffee, chocolate, milk, and tea, are available under the exclusive FamiCafe label.

“We produce our own food, starting from the chicken we fry ourselves, the pastry we bake ourselves, as well as the drinks we mix ourselves,” Tjandra said, adding that Family Mart is the first convenience store in Indonesia to have a halal certificate. “This applies to all of our food menus,” he said.

In terms of menu, the food offerings were created to meet Indonesian people’s tastes and categorised menus to morning, afternoon and evening eating habits. “So that’s why consumers can come more than once in one day… for breakfast and lunch or for lunch and dinner,” Tjandra said.

“In fact, new menu innovations are increasingly being carried out considering that our consumers are consumers who can come up to five times in one week,” he added, noting that another menu change will be launched soon.

Servicing the office segment

The office market segment has been Family Mart’s first target, because it is a productive group of consumers whose demands for the day must be readily served. That is why Family Mart has long made its presence in office buildings.

“Almost 90% of office buildings in Jakarta have Family Marts,” said Tjandra. “So at least when we first arrived, we already had a captive market, namely the people who work in the building.”

In the end, when the office segment of people became very familiar with Family Mart, they began to appear on the streets.

With its affordable food and drink offerings, Family Mart will suit any market segment, said Tjandra. “According to the name ‘Family,’ we basically embrace all segments as one family,” he said.

Minimise queues

Due to its strong presence in the office sector, Family Mart places a significant emphasis on providing swift service. This is made feasible by their innovative Fami Apps, which serves as an integral component of the omni-channel Family Mart experience.

“With this application, they don’t need to queue, just order via smartphone, pay, then the goods or food can be delivered or picked up themselves,” explained Tjandra.

Apart from that, they also have an in-store ordering kiosk machines that consumers can use to order independently while making payment. Store employees will receive orders through the system and immediately prepare the items to be purchased. So through this machine consumers don't need to queue.

The cash register can also process POS machine payments. They also accept various payment platforms, from debit, QRIS, credit cards, or cash to accommodate the payment habits of each consumer.

Tjandra said innovation was the key to cutting the long transaction time. One example is the use of handheld portable cash registers that can easily open a new line in case the cashier queue is too long. “This is also the main point of convenience stores. If you have to experience a long queue, it means it’s no longer convenient,” he said.

The CEO of Family Mart Indonesia said that by the end of the year, they will have a total of 300 shops in two big cities in Indonesia, namely Jakarta and Surabaya; and next year, they are targeting to have 400 shops.