Store: Waitrose Lichfield
Store manager: Barry Griffiths
Opened: 2005
Size: 26,867 sq ft
Market share: 9.36%
Population: 113,519
Grocery spend: £2,986,869.97
Spend by household: £63.62
Competitors: 23
Nearest rivals: Aldi 1.2 miles, Asda 6.7 miles, Co-op 1.5 miles, Iceland 0.8 miles, Lidl 1.8 miles, M&S 6.1 miles, Morrisons 1.0 miles, Sainsbury’s 5.8 miles, Tesco 1.2 miles, Waitrose 15.4 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 makes Waitrose Lichfield distinctive? The shop is in a housing estate, so it’s really local to our customers. We’re a couple of miles outside of the town centre and it’s surrounded by housing, so it’s kind of the hub of the local community, especially with everything we do within the community. We have a really loyal customer base – our partners know many of the customers and the customers know the partners. It’s more of a market town atmosphere within the branch.
How do you cater to what your shoppers are looking for? Availability is obviously key, and it’s really good in the store. Its also about the quality of service: giving our partners time to spend with the customers so they’re not just in and out. Our customers are real food lovers, which is pretty standard for Waitrose. We always have partners on the shop floor whose remit is simply partner engagement and customer engagement, they’re not tied to tasks or anything. They are literally there to support our customer and partner experience.
How do you approach management within the store? My focus has been on partners making great judgements, so coaching partners to understand what good looks like and then giving them the time and space to do what they can do, and helping them take a lot of ownership. That’s absolutely key to the success of the partnership, but also the success of the branch.
What has your career trajectory been? I’ve been here for 18 months. Before that I was in the Newport branch in Shropshire, which was also a Grocer 33 winner – unfortunately two weeks after I left! I’ve been with the partnership for 10 years now and prior to that, I was a branch manager for Morrisons and Safeway. I joined the partnership because it was all about leadership. It was about being great leaders and having that partnership ethos. I wanted to see what it’s like and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made in my career. Waitrose is really partner-led rather than being top down.
How has the Easter trade been for you? It’s going well. Our value campaign has been really well received by customers. Then we have the offers at the moment on fine wines and Easter eggs, hot cross buns and so on. It’s really starting to tick up at the moment, so it’s looking like quite a positive Easter after a positive Christmas. You can see that customers are looking forward to time off with their families and are maybe more focused on these kinds of special family occasions than in previous years.
As we move into the rest of the year, have you got any particular plans for the store? Win the Grocer 33 again. What we want to do in the branch is continue the great work we’re doing. We want to ensure a customer comes into the shop and enjoys that shopping experience. That means getting what they want from an availability point of view, being wowed by our service, and leaving the shop feeling a bit special. We want customers to walk out feeling that they are appreciated and that they’re not just a number coming through the door. We also want to focus on the community work we do, such as supporting FareShare. I’ve got a couple of partners who are absolutely awesome at that and will go the extra mile with it.
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