McColl’s has launched a number of major strategic initiatives as it looks to get back on to the front foot following the difficulties it faced when Palmer & Harvey collapsed last November.
The convenience retail chain is conducting reviews of its pricing, newsagent stores and its Plus loyalty scheme as well as developing a new website and ramping up its food to go offer.
McColl’s CEO Jonathan Miller told the recent IGD Convenience Retailing Summit that food to go was a “massive opportunity” and admitted that it was an area it had under-invested in compared with its rivals.
“We are very serious about food to go and there is lots of runway still to go in McColl’s,” he said, highlighting the appointment of Matt Cundrick from M&S as head of food to go last November as a sign of intent. “If you are a food-to-go supplier and you don’t know Matt you better make sure you get an introduction,” he added. Miller said food to go in McColl’s had grown 60% in the past two years.
Also speaking at the event was McColl’s customer director Tim Fairs, who confirmed the retailer was looking to review its pricing to better fit its customer demographics.
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“We know more about our customers than ever before,” said Fairs. “Many have below-average incomes and stretched household budgets. In fact, nearly 50% of our customers fall into that category. This is in fact driven by where the stores are located and what we need to do on that basis is challenge every aspect of what we do in terms of our proposition whether that is range, pricing or promotions.”
He said the retailer’s current pricing structure was too complicated and it would look to create a clear policy that met customer needs, focusing on “good everyday value overlaid with exciting promotions”.
Fairs added that the work McColl’s was doing on range and pricing would deliver improved like-for-like sales by driving increased footfall and growing average basket sizes.
In its most recent accounts, McColl’s like-for-likes were down 0.9% for the 13 weeks to 26 August, which the retailer said was still affected by the collapse of P&H, which supplied about 700 of its 1,600 stores up until last November.
Fairs did not elaborate on the revamp of the retailer’s Plus loyalty card scheme but said it would continue to look to develop it in order to drive footfall.
The new website, which is currently in development, would be “best in class” he claimed, and would have a much more foodie focus.
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