Mark A’Court and his wife Veronica have helmed Fresh Choice Nelson City for three decades and in that time have orchestrated an in-store, 15,000 song playlist amplifying shoppers’ experience.
He says, “shimmying with the trolley” is a common sight, and the store’s music distinction from Handel to Johnny Cash to Kiwi artists has, like food, been good for shoppers’ souls.
“We play a random mix of genre, so the tempo changes frequently which attracts people’s interest, so playing a faster track, and then a slower track, and then a blues track, and then a pop track,” he says.
“People have got used to the collectiveness of it and it has become a big talking point and a big part of our supermarket’s culture. I’ve been told that they spend too much time listening to the music instead of rushing in and rushing out, and hopefully that translates into more sales,” he quips.
“We’ve had people taking videos of people dancing in the aisles… there’s often people jigging around and moving their little booties and singing as well.”
Staff member Sherrie Stratton confesses she’s one of the groovers.
“On a Saturday morning when it’s quiet they’ll always see me on the security cameras dancing through the aisles,” she laughs.
Mark says the store’s playlist hit its first notes while other big-box retailers were entering the city centre.
“When we bought the supermarket one of the great passions of my life at that point was music and so I thought we’d try and juju the playlist by playing less commercial tracks and more interesting music to make our business unique,” he says.
“It grew over the years, basically through our viral collection and copied into a computer, which you had to do manually in those days. We built that soundtrack back in the 90s and over time we loaded the CDs in, and we stopped adding songs a few years ago since it was getting too big.”
