Store: Waitrose Formby
Manager: Andrew Lloyd-Williams
Opened: 2006
Size: 24,005 sq ft
Market share: 31.6%
Population: 73,632
Grocery spend: £2,073,983.55
Spend by household: £65.34
Competitors: 13
Nearest rivals: Aldi 4.4 miles, Asda 6.3 miles, Co-op 0.8 miles, Iceland 0.1 miles, Lidl 6.0 miles, M&S 0.2 miles, Morrisons 5.5 miles, Sainsbury’s 4.5 miles, Tesco 0.6 miles, Waitrose 16.0 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.
For CACI’s shopper segmentation of the other stores we visited this week see the online report at www.thegrocer.co.uk/stores/the-grocer-33
What has been your career trajectory at Waitrose? I joined the Partnership nine years ago down in south Wales and worked a number of branches down there as a deputy branch manager. I then moved up to Chester in 2014, where we opened our new store, which was great. After that, I progressed to branch manager and looked after a number of stores. I’ve had the leadership role at Waitrose Formby for the past 12 months.
How has the year at Formby been for you? It’s been a great year. Last year was really an opportunity for us to reset post-Covid, and see where trade would settle for us in terms of the mix of online and in-store trade, and adjust our focus and resources in line with that. I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved over the past 12 months, and in terms of delivering customer experience we really pushed that up to the next level. We’re very lucky in Formby: we’ve got some great counter offers and a really good café. We’ve seen lots of customers starting to return to enjoy those, particularly towards the back end of the week and the weekend.
Could you tell me about the demographic of your shoppers? Formby is a great example where we’ve got a really broad mix of customers. We have that traditional family shopper who’s doing a big basket, and we have a number of retired pensioners in the area who come in almost on a daily basis to do a bit of a top-up shop, but also to enjoy our café.
How are you dealing with fruit & vegetable supply issues at the moment? We’ve had a good supply. When I look around my branch, although there are pockets that may be impacted, generally availability is quite good. We haven’t put any rationing on vegetables. We are working very closely with our suppliers, and that’s where being a business that operates in a different way helps: we have really strong relationships with our suppliers and I think that’s been part of our success over recent weeks.
Could you tell me a bit about your Easter range? We’ve got our Easter sale on now, and it’s already starting to sell, which is great to see. We’ve got a great assortment of own-brand products there and some new lines that have been introduced, and Heston Blumenthal has some of his final products in this Easter.
How do you ensure the store is providing excellent service? I don’t think service is one thing in isolation: it’s the sum of a number of things coming together to deliver a great customer experience. First and foremost, one of our strengths is we’ve got a really strong group of partners that have a great connection with each other, and who want to deliver the best customer experience. We’ve also been dipping our toe into trialling some seasonal events to really deepen that connection with the customer. Over Christmas we did a showcase event, which was an opportunity to invite our customers into branch to sample some of our products and interact with our specialists and partners to find out more information about the products. It’s something that really differs from our competitors. We’ll be doing something very similar in the build-up to Easter. I think moments like these are something that really attracts customers.
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