Winner: Tesco Extra Ryde, Isle of Wight
Customer services manager: Andrew Cooke
Opened: 1981
Size: 80,000 sq ft
Market share: 59%
Nearest rivals: Sainsbury’s - 3.9 miles; Morrisons - 6.6 miles; Waitrose - 7.3 miles
Store data source: Analysis by CACI. Call the market planning group on 020 7602 6000
How does it feel to win? Fantastic. The store was originally 44,000 sq ft but five years ago a new 80,000 sq ft store was built to give us extra non-food space. The shop was under pressure so this helped us expand our offer. The store’s been doing really well.
How are you gearing up for Bestival and the Isle of Wight Festival? We’re looking at what we can do to promote them and the lines we can stock that might suit them. Last year, we sold Isle of Wight Festival t-shirts and dedicated a space to sleeping bags, collapsible chairs, foam bed mattresses, tents and boxes of beer.
What other seasonal lines do you stock? As we’re a seaside resort, we sell wetsuits, buckets and spades, and body boards, which are sourced from a local supplier. We try to stock as many local lines as possible. Rew Valley Dairies is our main supplier of milk and butter, while we sell local beer from Goddards Brewery.
Was your store affected by the recent spate of snow? The snowfall wasn’t that heavy in Ryde we traded as normal. However, there was drifting snow and road closures around Niton and Ventnor, which affected some of our dotcom operations.
Tesco Price Promise launched this week. How’s it going? We’ve had a customer champion at the front of the store explaining the offer. Customers have seen the adverts on TV and have been asking about them. They see the Price Promise as something extra that they’re getting and the feedback has been really positive.
Are customers still asking about horsemeat? There were quite a lot of questions when the news first broke but they’ve died down now. We’ve handed out corporate-produced leaflets to customers. We’ve also got the Tesco Food News website, which customers can visit to see the products that have been tested and the results.
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