from Keith Webb, Costcutter, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire
Sir; Pricing levels have provided endless opportunities for discussion over recent years - witness recent letters from John Sharpe at Nisa-Today’s and Kevin Hawkins, formerly of Safeway.
As a former trading director of Spar and director of buying for T& S, I have had the inside line on the thinking in a traditional c-store group and a CTN-based operation. It has been clear to me for many years that public utterances over the importance of price vary from their actions.
As far back as the early 1990s when I was at Kwik Save its customers were reluctant to admit that price was the key determinant for their shop choice when, in reality, price was all we were offering.
People don’t want to appear to be price driven, and therefore less well off, when faced with a clipboard-toting researcher.
Many c-stores must now fight for their customers’ discretionary pound since it is no longer enough just to be open. Local stores will usually get the ‘distress’ purchase; the good ones will also get some incremental impulse business.
However, in the long term, they will have to deliver a true value offering that addresses the fact that while customers may currently expect to pay more, they don’t like to.
The challenges for the non-multiples stores are to deliver excellent standards, staff and availability. The challenge for the groups supplying them is to harness their volumes, help deliver category management implementation at store level and to build retail brands that become synonymous with quality and value.
Promotions have delivered great volumes over recent years - witness Safeway - showing that customers will respond to good value. C-store promotions in many cases match the multiples for ‘aggression’.
As long as the current thinking in Nisa-Today’s prevails and the focus is on retailer margin as well as the box-moving opportunity, there is a chance that the old c-store orthodoxies can be consigned to history and a convenience future dominated by the multiples can be combated.
As a c-store retailer, everyday I see customers comparing prices via their mobile phones before deciding whether to buy. My market research prior to taking over the store showed that pricing was my potential customers’ top issue. Since converting the store to a Costcutter, the more aggressive pricing and promotional platform and improvements to the dry grocery, chilled and fresh offers have delivered sales growth of more than 35%.
If, at last, some suppliers’ jaundiced ‘you can charge more, so I can charge you more’ mentality is being challenged it can only be good for the sector. And ‘price’ will still come out fifth in much market research.
Sir; Pricing levels have provided endless opportunities for discussion over recent years - witness recent letters from John Sharpe at Nisa-Today’s and Kevin Hawkins, formerly of Safeway.
As a former trading director of Spar and director of buying for T& S, I have had the inside line on the thinking in a traditional c-store group and a CTN-based operation. It has been clear to me for many years that public utterances over the importance of price vary from their actions.
As far back as the early 1990s when I was at Kwik Save its customers were reluctant to admit that price was the key determinant for their shop choice when, in reality, price was all we were offering.
People don’t want to appear to be price driven, and therefore less well off, when faced with a clipboard-toting researcher.
Many c-stores must now fight for their customers’ discretionary pound since it is no longer enough just to be open. Local stores will usually get the ‘distress’ purchase; the good ones will also get some incremental impulse business.
However, in the long term, they will have to deliver a true value offering that addresses the fact that while customers may currently expect to pay more, they don’t like to.
The challenges for the non-multiples stores are to deliver excellent standards, staff and availability. The challenge for the groups supplying them is to harness their volumes, help deliver category management implementation at store level and to build retail brands that become synonymous with quality and value.
Promotions have delivered great volumes over recent years - witness Safeway - showing that customers will respond to good value. C-store promotions in many cases match the multiples for ‘aggression’.
As long as the current thinking in Nisa-Today’s prevails and the focus is on retailer margin as well as the box-moving opportunity, there is a chance that the old c-store orthodoxies can be consigned to history and a convenience future dominated by the multiples can be combated.
As a c-store retailer, everyday I see customers comparing prices via their mobile phones before deciding whether to buy. My market research prior to taking over the store showed that pricing was my potential customers’ top issue. Since converting the store to a Costcutter, the more aggressive pricing and promotional platform and improvements to the dry grocery, chilled and fresh offers have delivered sales growth of more than 35%.
If, at last, some suppliers’ jaundiced ‘you can charge more, so I can charge you more’ mentality is being challenged it can only be good for the sector. And ‘price’ will still come out fifth in much market research.
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