Wayne Bailey has seen “an awful lot of change” during his 23 years with Asda, but even he admits that the past couple of years have been tough. However, his superstore in Weymouth shows that despite the company’s recent struggles, Asda can still deliver a brilliant shopping trip.
Fresh from sealing Asda’s first Grocer 33 store of the week win for eight months, Bailey talks about the challenges of running a highly seasonal seaside store, Asda’s efforts to win back shoppers and what he thinks will help deliver its turnaround plan.
Asda has started the new Grocer 33 year in good form. You must be delighted. We’ve been struggling a lot in the Grocer 33 so this is awesome, we’re absolutely chuffed to bits. I’ve been with Asda 23 years, three-and-a-half years here. There’s been an awful lot of change as we keep evolving to our customers’ needs. We are definitely on the road to recovery.
Is there any better weather to be a seaside store than what we’ve been experiencing recently? How busy have you been? We’re less than half a mile from Weymouth beach, so classed as a highly seasonal store. We have our loyal local customers throughout the year, but we’re just coming into peak holiday season, where we get a lot of inbound traffic from outside of Weymouth – it’s busier than Christmas. The weather the last few summers hasn’t been as good, but this year the rush has started early, back in May. There are four big holiday parks nearby which we also deliver to.
How does your range differ to other Asda stores you’ve worked at? Our range flexes as we gear up to peak. We’ll roll out more displays of snacks, hot weather lines, drinks and barbecue. We’ve got a range of Wilton Bradley swimsuits. Our typical basket size sits between a student shop, which is around a £15 basket, anywhere up to a £40 trolley, so trade is very mixed. Holidaymakers will typically come in for a big trolley shop at the start of the week, and then a couple of evening top-up shops throughout the week.
Does your location bring any unique challenges? It’s really just about how we prepare for trade. It’s important that we give every customer who comes into store the same experience and availability. With holidaymakers, it’s often their first time into store. There’s a lot of competition nearby and we won’t get them back if the first impression isn’t right.
How has the Take a Fresh Look initiative landed at Weymouth? We’ve relaunched our fresh offer across the business to reinvent the range with focus on quality. Frozen has also been relaunched with a new point of sale package, better range and more space given to high volume lines. It’s gone down well and has helped a lot around perception given all of the changes that Asda has been going through. There’s also been a lot of focus on getting back to basics with process, in order to really simplify the way we manage stock from the back of the store to the front of the shop, as well as to improve customer service.
How bad was the disruption from the final stage of the Project Future IT transition from Walmart? It was challenging. The servers that we initially launched the platform with struggled and, as more regions went across, pressure on the platform increased. We lost a lot of our online customers. But what’s really important is that we’re through that now, and we’re continuing to win them back. We’ve had two or three years where our systems have been too complex; we’ve removed blockers and are slowly seeing the offer improve for customers as a result.
Tell us more about the special educational needs and disabilities supported internship you run in Weymouth? I volunteered the store to join in September last year. We had three colleagues join us. During the internship they’re trained in lots of areas of the store and then also have wider support from teachers and some classroom sessions as well.
People with ADHD and autism are really suited to roles in store as a lot of what we do is repetitive and structured. They have some very good skills and great ability; they just don’t always have the confidence. As a store manager you can’t be any prouder than knowing you’re giving someone an opportunity to work and earn their own money. I’m delighted to say that one of them – Alfie – has been offered a full-time role as a self-checkout host. Every store should be doing it, and we’ll go again in September.
You’ve proved that Asda can still be brilliant - what do you think needs to be done to turn the business around? We’ve got to keep it simple, we can’t allow any complexity to creep back in. I can’t lie, the original Asda culture faded away somewhat after we went private, and we lost our identity. But now it’s coming back. We’re back winning on price again and now we’re focusing on improving the Rewards loyalty programme. If we want to be successful, we need to keep that Asda identity.
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