Dated sheds are out and bang up to date family retailing is in as Naafi transforms its German stores
John Wood reports
While Naafi stores in the UK have improved beyond all recognition in the past three years as a result of its partnership with Spar, servicemen and women in Germany could have been forgiven for feeling they were the poor relations when it came to shopping. To the British consumer Naafi's German stores looked a couple of decades out of date, although the German competition was no better.
But over the past 18 months, Naafi has been working on a plan to redress the balance and the Naafi Max store at the Sennelager military base in central Germany is the result.
Naafi began with research carried out in-house and then by outside consultants to gauge customers' views. Laurie Martienssen, director for Germany, explains: "Customers wanted a state-of-the-art store selling British goods but also offering other facilities. They also told us the old green Naafi logo was looking dated." But Naafi also had to react to a shrinking market as the number of servicemen and women posted in Germany has been steadily declining over recent years.
The strategy it adopted was to slim down a number of its stores into Naafi Local convenience outlets, serving local needs, and to develop a number of larger Naafi Max stores, "centres of excellence" which would provide a full family shop for a wider catchment.
Naafi's chief executive Geoffrey Dart says: "The Naafi Max stores need to provide a shopping experience worth a trip of at least an hour."
The response was a store that would match the highest standards in the UK. Martienssen says the aim was to produce a village centre for the base that could provide for all a family's needs. In a phased redevelopment that enabled the existing store to continue trading throughout, almost everything except a few walls was replaced. In the food hall the ceiling and floor were replaced and banks of new chillers and freezers were introduced. The range was increased to about 6,000 lines to provide food and drink for the family, although duty free drinks and tobacco remain one of the most popular features.
A new colour scheme was introduced, replacing Naafi's usual green with a patriotic but modern looking red white and blue. This is reflected in the store's fascia and new staff uniforms.
The focal point of the new store is a café providing a meeting place for customers. Next to the café is a creche where children can play in safety while their parents shop.
New facilities include a Tony & Guy Essensuals hairdressers, a Duds and Suds dry cleaning and laundry service which can turn around orders in 24 hours (a refreshing change to the sluggish service in German facilities), a florist and a travel agent.
Funding for the £1.67m project came from Naafi (£1.1m), the military (£490,000) and suppliers (£78,000).
Although the store has been transformed from what Martienssen describes as a "dated shed" into a modern family store, he detects a deeper change in the culture of Naafi in Germany. "We are now paying the customers the respect they were due, and you can also see a new sense of self esteem in the staff and a pride in their store."
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