You were nominated for Store Manager of the Year at the Grocer Gold Awards this year – and you’ve won again. How do you keep it up? Shopkeeping is at the heart of what we do. We’ve embedded some new processes over the past few years, and the team have bought into it. What I’m trying to say is the wheel works. I couldn’t achieve anything without the team here.
What’s it like to be a retailer Cardiff? We are blessed with every retailer going, as one would expect in the capital city of Wales. That means customers have a lot of choice about who they choose to shop with. We’re fortunate Waitrose has kept to our principles. We’ve got a fantastic service counter, where sales are particularly strong. We’ve got new summer ranges too. Customers want those points of difference and that keeps them coming back.
What sort of customers do you attract? People come from Swansea, which is nearly 50 miles away, to shop with us – they use our café and will spend hours in the shop just browsing. Generally, though, our shoppers are food lovers. It’s not always about affluence. If you live in Cardiff and you’re a food lover and you want to cook something really special, you will do your best to come and shop with us.
Read more:
-
Waitrose in Pontprennau is Cardiff’s best supermarket, finds mystery shop survey
-
Asda’s cheapest supermarket streak continues, as it defies 4% inflation rate
-
What is The Grocer 33 and how does it work?
Have shopping behaviours changed since our visit last year? Not so much in what people are buying, but how they are buying has evolved. On-demand grocery is up 45% over the past year. We cover a huge area, as far as Swansea for dotcom deliveries. Online sales are 30%-35% of our total sales – we can handle 1,700 orders a week. It all adds complexity. My biggest challenge has been how we stop online impacting shop floor standards. We’ve learned to become really good at it. We’re better at understanding when orders are going to peak, for example when it’s raining or when there’s a football match. I’ve also recruited people dedicated specifically to the on-demand shop, whereas previously it was more ad hoc. Footfall is also up, so we are winning new customers across all different platforms.
Waitrose is planning an expansion across the south east, with a new DC in Bristol. Will you benefit? It’s going to have a really positive impact on availability. At the moment all deliveries come from Bracknell. Simply, if a lorry arrives a couple of hours earlier because it’s now coming from Bristol, it gives us more time to get product picked and on shelf in time for customers. A couple of hours makes all the difference.
How do you intend to stay ahead of the competition? We’re going into a seven-week refit in September to enhance our customer offer even further. We’re putting in a Waite & Rose café, a dry aged beef cabinet and a new Sushi Daily counter. We won last year, we won this year – my ambition is to win next year as well.
No comments yet