Waitrose is the latest retailer to begin trialling electronic shelf labels in a number of its Little Waitrose convenience stores.
The Grocer understands the technology is currently being trialled at its Little Waitrose store in Crouch End, with plans to roll the tech into more of Waitrose’s innovation stores in the near future.
It’s one of a number of new initiatives Waitrose is trialling in order to modernise its stores and supply chain as part of its latest convenience store rollout.
“We are almost committing open heart surgery on some of our systems,” Waitrose retail director Tina Mitchell told The Grocer, during an interview at the National Convenience Show.
“We have some quite old heritage systems which we are slowly but surely removing and modernising. It’s given us a huge boost in terms of availability, consistency and showing up,” Mitchell said.
Waitrose was focusing on using to tech to improve availability in stores, but was also looking at new ways to improve “cash automation and partner devices” Mitchell said. It will also soon complete the rollout of a new merchandising operations system developed by Trust Retail. Waitrose plans to open new innovation stores later this year to test more tech.
“We are investing heavily both in terms of cost but also in brain power. Availability is a basic tenet that we have to get right,” Mitchell said.
Having opened the first Waitrose store for six years at Hampton Hill in November, the John Lewis Partnership plans to invest a further £600m into its stores and supply chain this year, following a tripling of annual profits last year.
So far, Waitrose has confirmed the locations for two new Little Waitrose stores that will open in the spring, alongside refits for a further 20 of its larger supermarkets.
Waitrose initially intends to have opened 100 new Little Waitrose stores by 2029. However, Mitchell said the supermarket was confident that it could reach “more than that” over time. It is actively exploring new locations in the north of England, where Waitrose historically has less of a presence.
Waitrose’s previous convenience rollouts have failed
It’s not the first time that Waitrose has set ambitious convenience growth plans. In 2008, then John Lewis chairman Mark Price set a goal of opening “hundreds and hundreds” of Little Waitrose stores. There are currently 48 company-run shops, alongside its partnerships with Shell, Welcome Break, Dobbies and Margiotta.
“It’s quality over quantity; we are taking our time to find the right locations that resonate with our customers,” Mitchell said.
One of the reasons why Waitrose’s previous expansion plan had faltered was because the supermarket had made the “error” of trying to ”shrink” the range from its larger supermarkets into a smaller store format, Mitchell said.
“Essentially what you end up with is a little bit of a jumbled mess and you most definitely end up with a proposition that is unsustainable in terms of operating costs.
“So we’re being very intentional and forensic about how we pull together food for tonight, meals for later. But also, how we show up in meal deals. It was something Waitrose wasn’t doing a couple of years ago and has been hugely successful for us,” Mitchell said.
“We’re just more mature in our thinking now then we were before.”
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