Co-operative Group has been trialling a range of home delivery services, in a bid to increase customer spending. Retail controller Malcolm Hepworth told the Grocer that at seven stores it has been offering an option where the customer does the shopping but the Co-op then delivers. He said it had increased spending levels both in city centre sites and "leafy suburbs" and would now be rolled out to 70 more stores. And at three stores, two in Scotland and one in the south East, internet and catalogue home shopping is being trialled. Hepworth said it offered the entire superstore range plus some non food. There is no delivery charge, and the Co-op is testing the minimum order threshold. He described it as "a toe in the water" and "experimental". Details of the new home delivery options were revealed as Co-operative Group announced its first results since the merger of CWS and CRS 13 months ago. The merger of loss making CRS with CWS failed to dent profitability, with the renamed Co-operative Group's trading profit for 2000 almost the same as the CWS figure for 1999 at £130.7m. The food retailing division, which is claimed to be the largest co-operative food retailer in Europe, pushed operating profit from £25.9m to £27.2m for the year to January 13. Food retailing turnover was up from £1.4bn to £2.2bn, reflecting the nine month contribution from CRS after the merger on April 2 last year. Hepworth said he was pleased the society had been able to consolidate the two businesses without affecting profitability. He said: "It was a remarkable feat to achieve what we did without affecting operating performance." Hepworth said it proved the strategy of concentrating on neighbourhood stores and moving away from superstores was working. A third of the 1,100 stores have been converted to the Welcome or Market Town format, with conversions running at six to eight a week. Hepworth said like for like sales for the Welcome stores were up 5%. Hepworth also said the group was investigating whether a suitable ROCE (return on capital employed) could be achieved on a smaller version of the Welcome format, which is being trialled at a 1,100 sq ft store in Kingston in south London. He said the group was aiming to acquire up to 50 stores a year, but there was a shortage in its preferred size range of about 2,500 sq ft. The new convenience store format would allow it to operate from much smaller stores of 1,000 sq ft. Hepworth said margins at the Kingston store had increased 2% since it was refitted. {{NEWS }}

Topics