Kohl’s Testing Cafe Concept At Two Wisconsin Locations

Kohl’s is joining the ranks of retailers like Target, Sam’s Club, IKEA, Costco, and countless others in bringing weary shoppers what they really want: something to snack on while traipsing down the aisles checking off items from their list.

On Tuesday, Kohl’s began testing small in-store cafes at two of its locations in Wisconsin in an attempt to keep customers caffeinated and engaged while shopping, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

The new “Kohl’s Cafe” stores will serve select drinks from Caribou Coffee, as well as snacks, such as granola bars, breakfast bars, chips, cookies, and other quick-grab items.

The idea behind the pilot cafes is to keep consumers in stores longer, increasing the chance they’ll buy more stuff.

“You want the customer to dwell more,” Jon Grosso, executive vice president and director of stores for Kohl’s said. “You want them to spend time in the building.”

The test is the latest venture in the company’s “Greatness Agenda,” an initiative to increase the chain’s sluggish sales by around $2 billion by 2017, the Journal Sentinel reports.

The 1,166-store retailer previously revamped its beauty sections and launched online order pickup at some stores.

Grosso tells the Journal Sentinel that the company doesn’t have immediate plans to expand the cafe concept, but never say never.

“We want to test and learn and see what we can do in 2016,” he said. “…And then, wherever we expand it, if and when we do, we want to apply those (lessons).”

Kohl’s testing small cafes as part of moves to re-energize sales [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

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