Store: Tesco Allerton Rd, Liverpool
Store manager: Simon Jones
Opened: October 1989
Size: 25,658 sq ft
Market share: 6.3%
Population: 604,311
Grocery spend: £14,883,866
Spend by household: £55
Competitors: 117
Nearest rivals: Aldi 1.4 miles, Asda 0.7 miles, Co-op 0.7 miles, Iceland 0.3 miles, Lidl 2.2 miles, M&S 2.1 miles, Morrisons 2.2 miles, Sainsbury’s 1.9 miles, Tesco 0.2 miles, Waitrose 13.1 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.
What’s your history with this Tesco branch? I’ve been with Tesco 18 years this year, and I’ve been in Allerton Road for four years in May just gone. The superstore format is intense, and Allerton I think is one of the most sales-dense stores certainly in the north, if not in the company. It’s a big food store, so 90% of it will be packaged and fresh food, which is unusual as there’s normally a bigger non-food split in most shops. The pace and intensity of the shop can be difficult to keep up with sometimes, particularly when you have spikes in weather, like last weekend.
How do you maintain good store standards when there is higher footfall? We’re an upmarket store so we have an upmarket overlay in terms of some of our range. But then alongside that, there’s kind of upmarket expectations of the shopping trip. So all the functional elements of service for our customers are really important, as well as the emotional service with colleagues being helpful and friendly. We track those customer metrics centrally via customer viewpoints to give us feedback and scores.
There were quite a few items out of stock. Are you experiencing particular availability gaps? From what the shopper described, most of those out of stock items were hot weather, barbecue and party products, but nine times out of 10 there will be an alternative for our customers. If there’s a spike in weather, you can burn through that stock very quickly, and it won’t be replenished until the system is next due to send it in. Sadly, some items do go out of stock, but we have counting processes in place and we’ll restock during the day for our bestseller lines.
How did you navigate the Heinz dispute and lack of stock? In terms of navigating availability, we have plenty of own-brand products – customers might not have been able to buy Heinz Beanz for example, but there were Branston beans and Tesco beans. Customers on the whole were understanding and it was resolved reasonably quickly anyway, so everything is back in stock now.
Tell us about your customer demographic and how it changes throughout the year. Customer demographic can change in the summertime. We have a college and an academy next door, and then we have the local halls residents not far away, so we can see the ebb and flow of students around term time, which makes a bit of a difference to the overall demographic. There is a convenience element to the store when we have the students at lunchtime or morning rushes, particularly around meal deals, as well as post-work quick items.
How are you catering to your summer customer base? Our main campaign now is helping people make healthier choices on our ‘power aisle’. We have our gardening campaigns on the seasonal aisle, and then the hot weather products that we push all through summer.
Did you have any issues with any of the chillers or freezers because of the heatwave? I’ve seen some of those reports but no, we were fortunate that we didn’t have issues. And I’m not aware of any of my local colleagues who suffered from any power outages. We have processes and preventative maintenance routines in place which really helps.
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