As suggested in the introduction, the place where you trade is of utmost importance. The aspects to look for are the amount of consumer traffic, parking, related stores, and of course rent – which usually reflects the expected turnover of the retail destination. Low rent often means little consumer traffic.

There are many examples of good ‘place’ decisions for specialist olive outlets all over Australia and New Zealand. There is the Marlborough Olive Shop on Ruapura Road in Blenheim, New Zealand, part of a tourist complex offering food, wine and vinegars. Across the Cook Strait there is the Kapiti Olive Shop at the Lyndale Centre, a much larger tourist complex just north of Wellington. Both these shops carry a range of olive and related products and rely on the complex to catch the tourist traffic looking for food and a browse.

In Australia there are the Olive Shops that are in major wine tourist areas, such as the Cowamarup Creek Farm shop, the home of Olio Bello, at Margaret River in Western Australia, and the Hunter Olive Centre that is part of the Pokolbin Wine Estate in the Hunter Valley.

In the wine region of Stellenbosch in South Africa there is Cottage Fromage – a cafe serving light deli meals with a shop for local olive products, wines and cheeses.

There are the nomadic trestle-based olive retailers who ply their trade at the farmer’s markets in the city and country alike. Here the competition is intense, not only to get and hold a spot – but to compete with the burgeoning number of producers who see this as the best way to sell their small volume labels.

There are also scattered examples of bad decisions – farm stores miles from anywhere and specialist olive outlets selling local products in suburbs populated by ethnic groups that have used the olives and oil from their homeland for generations.

Picking the right place is critical for success. 

The flood of new labels coming on to the market in Australia and New Zealand means that the specialty olive shops are being overwhelmed with approaches to stock the new brand. Of course they cannot all be accommodated. Many that are already on the shelves don’t move – an untenable situation for the retailer.

The altruistic approach to fulfil the aspirations of producers must be tempered with retail reality. Successful retailers will stock the products that are well priced, well presented, well promoted and different. These move and make profits.

A range of products is also more likely to encourage the add-on and impulse buy that turns a spend of $19.50 on a bottle of olive oil into a bigger spend on associated products. Clever cross-merchandising can increase the value of the sale per customer – an important retail benchmark.