Tesco Hatfield is an “opinion-forming store” in the Tesco estate, says store manager David Anthony. His 65,000 square foot Extra is a stone’s throw from Tesco HQ in nearby Welwyn Garden City and a regular host of senior execs and supplier CEOs.
Anyone visiting during the week of our Welwyn Hatfield mystery shop would have been delighted with Tesco’s perfect availability and standards. Anthony, who has been with the retailer 16 years, sat down with The Grocer to discuss why being so near to HQ is a “privilege”, the difficulties that come with picking 250,000 online items a week, as well as keeping up with the summer heat.
You’re in Tesco’s back garden, what’s it like being so close to HQ? It’s an awfully busy, important and opinion-forming store for Tesco. HQ is just down the road in Welwyn Garden City, so I see a lot of the leadership fairly regularly and often host the CEOs of major suppliers. It’s a privileged place to be, if I’m honest, I’m privy to lots of honest conversations.
What’s it like to be a retailer in Hatfield? Great store, great customers – it’s a really good place to be running a shop. We’re just off the A1(M) so really accessible to customers driving in and out of London and from multiple towns nearby. We’re classed as an affluent store and we serve just shy of 52,000 customers a week, with a real mix of trade spanning big baskets and sizeable home deliveries.
Our basket spend ranges from an average of £28-£29 but can go a lot lower and a lot higher. We’ve also got the University of Hertfordshire just down the road, so we get a lot of students shopping here – they make up a sizeable portion of our workforce as well. The store has been here for 38 years so it’s well established.
You scored perfectly for availability and customer service, what’s your secret? The shopper came in during a Saturday afternoon, which is not always the easiest time, so it was very pleasing. I’ve got 458 great colleagues here and we’re tenacious with our routines. We do our best early morning to look after our dot com customers and then to keep that availability throughout the day, especially in our hero departments.
I’ve been here just shy of two and a half years, and during that time we’ve focused heavily on ensuring we give great service from the minute we open to the minute we close, no matter what type of shop the customer is doing. The secret I’ve found to most effectively do that? Engagement: how you can get circa 500 people to specifically understand the part they play in delivering that great service, no matter what their role.
What’s your biggest challenge as a store team? Hatfield is 65,000 square feet, so in the grand scheme of our big Extras, that’s one of the smallest in the estate. In terms of the money we take and the rate of sale, there’s a real density and churn, which is difficult to keep on top of. That’s particularly true for our online operation, where we’ll pick anywhere up to 270,000 items a week. We’re taking that off the shelves for our shoppers instore.
Tesco is expanding its on-demand delivery. How are you getting ready? We haven’t got it in store yet, but we will be soon. It leads on from that conversation about availability - we’ll have to work even harder to make sure it’s right from the morning into the evening. On the other hand, if we get that right it should sharpen availability across the store.
How is summer trade typically? Has this summer been different given the heatwaves? We typically get a slight summer dip as people are away on holiday. That’s been the same this year. Retail is a sunshine business - we love it when the sun comes out, but there’s no doubt the heatwave has been challenging. Our maintenance team have done an extraordinary job. Tesco launched its ‘Thursday freebies’ coupons over the past couple of weeks, so we’ve been able to tempt shoppers in with free ice lollies, or a pizza when the football was on.
What’s your favourite new Tesco product, and why? I’m a dipper of crisps, so any of our Finest crisps with a dip is always going to do it for me. Alternatively, you’ll find me standing over a BBQ on my days off, so there’s a number of our Finest steak lines, and our brand new Finest Firepit Sausages are fantastic.
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