You’re the first-ever M&S store to be named Grocer 33 store of the week. How does it feel? It’s a great achievement, and really tops off the journey we’ve been on over the past year following a major renewal, and all the hard work colleagues have put in. It’s a delight.
You mentioned the renewal – it was billed as M&S’s ‘biggest’ single investment to date. What’s been the impact? We launched last October, to celebrate the store’s 35th anniversary. It took 18 months, which was a challenge to manage as we didn’t close the store. The end result is that we now have a bigger and better shop. We now stock every single M&S food line – our frozen section has quadrupled in size. We now also offer specialist lines in our home and clothing section. The store is at the front of innovation now. We’ve got a new coffee shop, a new layout, visual aids and we’ve added lots more assisted payment options. We’re definitely attracting more families since the renewal. It’s given us a much broader mix of customers, and they keep coming back week after week.
As a destination store at the edge of town how do you make sure people are coming into store? A lot of it is driven by social media. Our social media champion works hard to showcase the products we sell, and works with local influencers who come into store. One thing M&S has in abundance is newness and innovation, and it’s our job to showcase it and make it easier for customers to find. At the moment it’s absolutely anything that contains pistachio. We’ve just launched a mini pistachio bar, which is going viral. Pistachio cookie and ice cream are also going really well.
Read more:
-
Own-label lines help Asda to another victory as cheapest supermarket
-
M&S named best supermarket in Leicester as it takes first Grocer 33 win
-
What is The Grocer 33 and how does it work?
Leicester is a multicultural city. How does your range reflect that? Our range naturally caters to all sorts of cultures, and we have a great catalogue of products that appeal to many different people. We’ll tailor our store marketing to target certain celebrations that tie in with the local community. For example, recently it was Eid. We had a designated display with dates and chocolates. As with any celebration horticulture is really popular and I must say our flowers and plants section is absolutely wow at the moment.
M&S is known for its own labels – but do you stock any local Leicestershire brands? We are extra fortunate that a lot of M&S suppliers happen to be based locally. Over 40 of our select farms are based in Leicestershire, which as a store we’re very proud of. We don’t call it out all the time, but will do so for seasonal products, like our Fresh Market or Flower Shop specials.
It’s been a tough couple of months for M&S following the cyberattack. What was the impact on Fosse Park? We had some challenges and some disruption – without going into too much detail. Our focus now is how do we recover and come back bigger and better. That’s been the main message from the leadership team. Our click & collect is now back up and running. What’s been refreshing is how supportive our customers have been, they’ve stayed loyal and have continued to show faith in us.
What’s changed the most about working at M&S? I started my career at this shop 29 years ago, in the fresh foods department. I’ve worked at loads of different stores in between and came back here three years ago to lead the fresh food department. What has changed is that we are attracting more family customers. The value is exceptional on a lot of lines, we price lock more and we are price comparative to a lot of our competitors. Some things haven’t changed though. The fact we’ve been able to maintain our principles of innovation, our newness, trusted value and quality – our bread and butter – has also kept us top of the market. We can still get the best strawberries on the high street, because it’s trusted quality. That’s why people keep coming back to us.
No comments yet