Lisa Sedlar, CEO and founder of Green Zebra was preparing for a $10 million raise from venture capital funders, to finance a West Coast expansion of her convenience store chain, Green Zebra Grocery. Lisa Sedlar describes Green Zebra’s market positioning is a “cross between a Whole Foods and a 7-11”. The mission of Green Zebra is “to make healthy, natural, and organic food accessible to all, particularly in dense urban neighborhoods where there are fewer fresh and organic grocery options.”
Urban convenience stores dedicated to food retailing was a growing trend among the incumbent operators such as Kwik Trip Inc., Quick-Trip Corp., and 7-Eleven. These firms were responding to competitive pressures in the urban convenience store market as Walgreens, Amazon, and discount retailers began to test various convenience store formats. Shortly after her press release announcing plans to expand the Green Zebra chain, Amazon announced a 3,000-store national expansion of Amazon-Go.
Sedlar needs evidence that would validate her current value proposition, or she needs to make the decision to revise her customer value proposition, and demonstrate that Green Zebra offers a differentiated advantage in the convenience store market. Sedlar could not conduct a full-scale customer survey to validate her current customer value proposition, so she used social media content (online product reviews, Instagram photos, or blog posts) as the source of data to develop customer insights.
