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  BOBBY'S FOODSTORE

 

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 Everybody knows the dilemma. You go on holiday and get to know a grocery you really love. You come back home and you have no idea where to get it from. Other scenario: Some kind of product is abruptly taken away from stores and you can’t buy it anymore. At least for some Engli sh and American groceries, Bobby’s Foodstore has a solution. Since 14 years the store, which is located in the Schleifmühlgasse of the fourth district of Vienna, sells imported English and American groceries and drinks. It all started as a store for expatriates, mainly from Britain. It was founded by John Szewczuk, who still is the owner of the shop. There are about six people working there and lots of di fferent other  staff members helping out on the weekends. Their Nationalities are different, they live in Austria but they all speak fluently English, which makes you feel like being in  another cit y when  going  shopping at  Bobby’s.
Softdrinks

The shop is very small. That gives it all a really intimate and personal atmosphere, which lots of people seem to like: “We know many of our customers very well, many of them come to our shop quite regularly”, says one of the cashiers, who is from South Africa. The customers at Bobby’s Foodstore are all types of people. They’re from Austria, England, America, Australia and many other countries. And they’re not just young people or older immigrants, people of all ages seem to like the shop and its staff for what they do. One woman at the shop doesn’t even live in Vienna, but explains  why she's coming here nevertheless: “I live in Lower Austria, so I don’t come here very often. But when I come

Snacks

 

to Bobby's, that’s because I need something special which I can get nowhere else. I have lots of American cooking books at home and for some recipes I need original American ingredients. Today I got some cherry filling and condensed milk.” Stories like this might make people understand the big success of this tiny little shop. There is no comparable shop in Vienna, but the demand is very big. The question now is: Would this concept work on a bigger basis? Could it be run like a big supermarket? Would people still go there? The opinions differ: “I think it would work. On the one hand there is a big demand for our imported products and if we were bigger we probably could also sell more different things. At the moment we have a list from which we can order certain products. But people also love the familiarity at our shop, it’s a tough decision” says a staff member.

But how do they choose the products, how do they know what people want? Mainly because lots of them are native English speaking people and so they know about these products very well. Another important point is the interacting of the shop with the costumers via social media. There also is an online shop where people can order the shop’s products. Bobby’s informs their costumers and facebook fans about the products they have at the moment and there are lots of people who ask for specific things, which Bobby’s then tries to get for them. This might also be a reason for people to go there. They have the feeling that their 

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interests are being taken seriously. Maybe this form of interaction wouldn’t be possible if the shop was bigger, or if there were too many of them.

Despite  there are lots of products at the shop from soups over sweets to cider, there are some top-selling ones: non-alcoholic soft drinks like Vanilla Coke, Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke. Some of them even were available in Austrian stores for some time, but they obviously didn’t sell that well. Strangely, there now is a strong demand for these products. Maybe, because people tend to not appreciate things until they’re taken away from them. Hopefully people continue to appreciate Bobby’s and its staff for what they’re doing since 14 years now. “Bobby” was by the way deduced from the short cut BOBI which means “Best Of British Import”. Hopefully you’re not too disappointed, but there is no Bobby.

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online shop -> www.bobbys.at

facebook page -> http://www.facebook.com/bobbysfoodstore

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