When marketers in the retail space talk about growth, they usually mean fighting over what amounts to When marketers in the general market retail space talk about growth, they usually mean fighting over what amounts to scraps of market share in crowded retail channels. Real incremental growth is hard to come by, and brands often have to rely on flavors of the month or temporary discounts and deals to fight over the same “swing” shoppers.
This is an expensive proposition in a dog-eat-dog, hyper-competitive environment. And it’s exhausting.
What if you had a near-100% growth opportunity of already assembled, qualified, and geographically concentrated customers, with a built-in and well-defined audience simply waiting to be better served?
That’s the reality inside the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) ecosystem.
It’s a treasure trove of underserved and undermarketed individuals who have access but who are otherwise (largely) not using their benefits (at least not regularly).
Here’s how the numbers break down:
- Roughly 8.3 million people have Commissary benefits.
- Of those, about 3.5 million live within 20 miles of a Commissary, putting them well within practical shopping distance.
- Yet only 1.8 million are considered “regular” Commissary shoppers.
That gap of 1.7 million Commissary beneficiaries living within 20 miles of a Commissary represents one of the most overlooked retail growth opportunities in the country.
What would you do if you had a shot at doubling the market opportunity for an entire retail ecosystem? Wouldn’t it be strategically foolish to ignore this opportunity? Wouldn’t it be financially irresponsible not to support enhanced marketing activities at the Commissary?
Let’s break this down further to understand the market and what you should be doing to tap into this unprecedented growth engine.
A Built-In Audience, Not a Guaranteed Habit
Military families are not a monolith. However, there are more similarities than differences, and from a marketing perspective, there are many strategic ways to build campaigns that forge strong connections with this audience.
They are a large, diverse, mobile, and highly community-oriented consumer segment. They include active-duty service members, veterans, reservists, national guardsmen, retirees, military spouses, and their families. Many face unique financial pressures, frequent moves, and unpredictable schedules.
Commissary benefits are a meaningful part of the military compensation package, but benefits alone don’t automatically create shopping habits.
Today’s military consumer has options, and they are comparing the Commissary every day to:
- Highly convenient grocery delivery
- Aggressive CPG promotions at national chains
- Loyalty ecosystems tied to fuel, pharmacy, and digital coupons
- Retail environments that feel modern, curated, and easy
The overall Commissary savings of 25% is aggressive in the retail space, but if the experience doesn’t consistently compete on convenience, value clarity, product relevance, and communication, even benefit-eligible shoppers can be lured in by civilian retailers. Especially when you consider many shoppers are driving past alternatives (beloved local grocery chains, Walmart, etc.) who have earned strong brand loyalty through significant and concerted marketing efforts, it’s no wonder why we end up with millions of people who can shop at the Commissary but don’t regularly choose to.
While there are many challenges, it doesn’t mean the mission is over. It just means we need to improve the strategy and shift our tactics. As we’ve said, there is plenty of opportunity to win a huge surge of eligible shoppers.
There are many reasons Commissary shopping has dropped off, but as the adage goes, when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. As marketers, we want to seek out communications solutions to the challenges DeCA faces.
Of course, infrastructure challenges persist within any retail operation. DeCA is actively seeking ways to enhance the system, making improvements to better serve beneficiaries where they can. When more patrons are using the benefit, it increases cash flow into the system, and that means DeCA has more capacity to address those challenges.
We see win-win scenarios everywhere we look.
How DeCA Can Grow by Earning More “Regulars”
The path forward lies with a combination of not just more traffic but more habitual traffic. That means focusing on three critical levers:
1. Clear Value Communication
Many Commissary benefit holders don’t fully understand how much they save or where Commissary pricing beats local retail. In fact, many new military members don’t even realize the full extent of those benefits. Savings need to be visible, contextual, and easy to compare. From a marketing standpoint, we can improve in-store signage and messaging, enhance digital communication that compares Commissary against local retail, and deliver a greater volume of targeted messaging across a range of channels.
In many ways, those are easy problems to solve, completely within our wheelhouses. We need to deliver more marketing efforts targeting a well-known audience, leveraging emotional triggers that are deeply understood.
2. Relevance to Modern Military Life
Like many modern consumers, today’s military households want better-for-you options, convenient meal solutions, culturally relevant products, and brands they already know and trust. Assortment and promotion strategies should reflect how diverse military communities actually shop.
This is primarily a messaging challenge, but, just like the first point, a very surmountable one. Where feasible and viable, custom product offerings for military markets should be considered, especially when determining which products your brand is putting on the shelves at the Commissary. That selection should always be intentional, never an assumption or an afterthought.
As with any good marketing effort, your brand should ensure your messaging is aligning around product benefits with audience needs and emotional touchpoints at the forefront. Delivering those messages through trusted sources and active military communities goes a long way to making sure they are received positively (you can learn more about bBIG’s warm communities at our website).
3. A More Connected Experience
Digital touchpoints, targeted offers, event programming, and community partnerships can transform the Commissary from “a place to buy groceries” into a central, supportive part of military life. Thinking about “outside the gate” grocery chains and how ingrained they are with their communities, Commissary marketing can do more to build stronger connections. The more integrated the Commissary is with the rhythm of military communities, the more likely it is to become a default choice.
Once again, brands can step up here to build partnerships with local communities and create experiences commensurate with general market retail operations, albeit at a smaller scale.
Building long-standing partnerships through the Commissary can strengthen it as a cornerstone of the community it serves.
Why Brand Partners Should Lean In Now
For CPG brands, this is not just a patriotic play. It’s a strategic one.
Military consumers over-index in categories like packaged foods, family staples, health and wellness, baby products, and convenience-oriented solutions. They have a higher propensity for brand loyalty than general market consumers, especially when brands show up consistently and authentically in their world.
And as we have quantified, there are huge growth opportunities for brands that already have products on Commissary shelves.
Now is the time to invest heavily in marketing efforts. No matter where you stand with current sales and budget allotments, there is growth to be had. There are 1.7 million Commissary beneficiaries within shoppable distance that could become regular shoppers. And another 4.8 million with benefits that are sitting outside the 20-mile zone who could be reached with the right programs and messaging. These are people who have benefits but who are not regularly using them. They may not even know they have them.
Don’t you want a shot at capturing at least some of those incremental customers?
Here’s what we’re thinking: Forward this article to your CMO right now and ask for more budget! At least 25 or 50% would be fair, given the upside potential here. What other retail category gives you that kind of opportunity for growth? Tag in bBIG if you want – we’d be happy to help make the case for some additional budget to build the brand with the military audience.
Where bBIG is Looking at the Big Picture
We’re partnering with organizations like the American Logistics Association (ALA), select brands, and DeCA itself with a goal of helping to grow overall Commissary usage. This is not a zero-sum game. When DeCA strengthens engagement, relevance, and usage, all boats rise. Store traffic increases, baskets grow, and brands benefit from stronger trial and repeat.
Everyone involved gets to:
- Reach a concentrated, identifiable audience
- Tie into a benefits-driven value narrative
- Build long-term loyalty during key life stages
- Support a community that values brands that show up for them
Our role is to sit at the intersection of military insight, brand strategy, and activation, helping DeCA, industry partners, and community stakeholders work in concert instead of in silos. We are building a campaign similar to trade marketing programs you might see for other retail operations, one that brands buy into in a co-op fashion. In this manner, we will work to market the Commissary itself, increasing usage among the 8.3 million beneficiaries.
It requires:
- Strategy that aligns DeCA priorities, brand goals, and shopper realities
- Creative that speaks authentically to military life
- Programs that connect in-store, digital, and community touchpoints
- Partnerships that move beyond one-off promotions to long-term engagement
The real opportunity, as we see it, is in building a Commissary ecosystem that consistently earns its place in the lives of military families, rather than just converting occasional shoppers into regulars
And when that happens, growth isn’t theoretical. It will be built into the system.