Asda Clapham Katie Anthony

Source: Asda

Store: Asda Clapham Junction

Ops manager: Katie Anthony

Opened: October 1989

Size: 41,126 sq ft

Market share: 7%

Population: 1,981,202

Grocery spend: £51,809,952

Spend by household: £62

Nearest rivals: Aldi 1.6 miles, Asda 3.9 miles, Co-op 0.2 miles, Iceland 1.1 miles, Lidl 0.1 miles, M&S 0.6 miles, Morrisons 3.2 miles, Sainsbury’s 0.2 miles, Tesco 0.3 miles, Waitrose 0.2 miles

Source: CACI. For more info visit www.caci.co.uk/contact.

Notes: Shopper profiling is measured using Grocery Acorn shopper segmentation. Store catchment data (market share, population, expenditure, spend by household, competition) is within a five-mile radius. For CACI’s shopper segmentation of the other stores we visited this week see our service & availability report.

 

How do you and store manager Geet Panwar work in collaboration? I’ve been here since August and Geet came in November. We get along really well. I think he’s a great addition to the store. In the few months he’s been here, he’s managed to change a lot and just get the motivation back by driving people to do their best for customers.

You were in Burgh Heath, Tadworth, before. How are you finding the transition to Clapham? This shop, being in inner London and by the train station as well, is a lot busier. So it was very different at first, but I’d like to say I’ve got used to it now.

How do you maintain excellent shop floor service in such a busy store? We’ve got a wide team across the store – over 200 people – and we try to keep everyone active and happy. We speak to everyone in the day and make sure any problems people have get resolved so they’re actually happy coming to work and can give that service to the customers. We were really proud to see we had won this recognition for a visit that happened on the weekend, because it shows our standards hadn’t slipped even then.

Have you cleared all the Valentine’s Day stock? We did really well and sold all our Valentine’s flowers as we had a lot of people come at the last minute, in the evening. But the rest of the stock has been marked down to half price.

How are you gearing up for Easter? We’re quite a big Ramadan store, so we’ve got half-Easter, half-Ramadan in our seasonal aisles. We’ve started to get influx of the Creme Eggs, and we also put some mini eggs near our baking aisle as people like to use them for baking. For Ramadan, we’ve got the different KTC canned goods on offer (five for £1.50) and different deals across the big bags of rice. We’re not selling lots of dates just yet.

You are a large community store but also near a major transport hub. How does that affect your shopper demographic? This shop’s demographic goes from both ends of the spectrum, it’s a really wide range of shoppers from those on a budget to those who buy expensive champagne. We’ve got regular people who come and do their weekly shop that we see every week, but we also get a lot of people who just come in after work.

How do you stay competitive when there is a Lidl just across the road? We obviously don’t have a say over the prices, but Geet is all about trying to keep the store clean, tidy and welcoming. When you first walk in, we’ve got our bakery tables with all the fresh bakery items, like the pancakes we’ll have made in store – and that makes customers happy. Another point of difference is that we have a massive George section on a separate level. We get some people who will come in just to have a look at the clothes, or get something else from the upstairs section.

How about your click & collect operation? Our grocery click & collect section runs in the car park, allowing customers to check in via the app or their email and someone will be out with their shopping, which is really good as they don’t have to come into the shop if they don’t want to. But we also have the digital pick-up points upstairs for George parcels.