Sainsbury’s is to kick off a major overhaul of its Local convenience stores.
The multi-month programme begins this weekend and will see Sainsbury’s conduct a range review of products, as well as adjust store layouts and spacing across its 800-odd convenience estate.
Executives believe Sainsbury’s current convenience offer could better serve shoppers local to the stores. Therefore, they will look to rebalance the layout of stores, including by removing lines or adding new ones. It could also bolster the number of food to go or ‘dine in’ options available.
It is also understood they to want to increase the number of categories and lines available at some locations where the supermarket believes demand is currently underserved.
The Grocer understands that the supermarket began informing suppliers about the changes earlier this month.
The changes broadly mimic work currently underway across Sainsbury’s larger store estate, as part of its Next Level strategy, outlined by CEO Simon Roberts in February.
Sainsbury’s plans to “rebalance” 180 of its larger format stores over the next three years, in order to increase the total amount of food stocked. Just 15% of Sainsbury’s stores stocked its full food offer, Roberts said at the time.
It has set the target of adding more than 300,000 sq ft of new space dedicated to food across its footprint.
Sainsbury’s market share grew from 14.8% to 15.2% compared with the same time last year according to the latest Kantar figures released earlier this week. Executives believe a key driver of that growth has come from an increase in the average proportion of ”bigger basket shops” carried out at the supermarket.
Convenience sales growing
Supermarkets have also enjoyed a renewed growth of their convenience channels over the past year, as workers return to the office more frequently, and in greater numbers.
In response, Sainsbury’s is one of a number of grocers, including Tesco, Morrisons and Co-op, to have increased the proportion of ‘value’ or lowest tier own label products stocked in c-stores over the past year in a bid to make their offers more competitive.
Roberts told The Telegraph in December 2023, that it had “doubled” the number of products from its Stamford Street own label stocked across its Local estate. That followed the launch of a new Pocket Friendly Prices campaign, aimed at highlighting more reasonably priced lines in its c-stores in April.
Sainsbury’s has the rough target of opening 20-25 new Local stores each year, as part of its ongoing store expansion plan. Its latest opened at Edinburgh Airport in October, in a unit previously occupied by M&S. It is Sainsbury’s first-ever airport store.
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