Grocer 33 store of the week: Waitrose King’s Cross

How does the store’s location affect trading? The King’s Cross estate has been a huge renovation project and is continuing to grow. Sometimes it can feel like we’re a big convenience shop – we have a heavy lunchtime trade and a lot of custom from the university opposite us, as well as commuter trade. More and more people are starting to discover us, and we’re seeing volumes grow. The other unique thing from a trading perspective is that it means we have a real peak in summer. It matches our Christmas volume-wise. Granary Square attracts a lot of tourists during the summer, and we benefit from that.

The store has previously been described to The Grocer as an unofficial flagship store in London: There are a few things unique about this store. It’s in a Grade II listed building, so there’s a real visual appeal. A lot of our customers comment that they feel like they can shop freely, it’s bright and there’s a lot of space. We’re also uniquely hospitality-focused. We have a café, but also the Waitrose wine bar and the only Waitrose cookery school in store. Different brands will often ‘take over’ the wine bar, which brings lots of experiences with it as well. We’ve had musicians and DJs in store as well as different masterclasses. I wouldn’t say there’s a direct link between bar customers and an uptick in grocery sales, but it certainly makes us a bit different from a typical supermarket.

Location also means you have a big on-demand offer, how do you stop that impacting in-store service? We currently operate Uber Eats and Deliveroo and will soon launch on Just Eat. We see week-on-week growth, and it hasn’t reached its peak yet. There’s no real rhyme or rhythm to what people are buying, but order sizes have definitely got larger. It’s typically whatever people need at the time, and can be dependent on weather. We have made some alterations based on customer feedback. For example, originally orders would be collected from the welcome desk, but this was moved as it was getting busier and busier. We’re trialling different locations around store. Whether they are online or in store, customers are our priority. We know the peaks and troughs and it’s about having staff in the right place at the right time to meet demand.

What other improvements have you made in store? On availability, over the past 18 months we’ve focused on making processes as efficient as they can be. An example of that is the introduction of high-level shelving, which means we can store overstock on the shop floor, allowing us to fill gaps quicker. Layout-wise, we added a Sushi Daily counter and a dedicated John Lewis aisle.

Has Christmas come to King’s Cross yet? It feels like people are starting to shop Christmas earlier this year. We’ve already got some lines out alongside our Halloween range in our seasonal bay – which has also been really successful this year. It’s a range of different things like mince pies, panettones, Advent calendars. We’ll start introducing bulk lines as we get closer to Christmas. We are currently hiring our Christmas temps, who we’re hoping to start in November. It’s all based on hours – we typically have around 100 partners, so will look to increase overtime as well as hire temps.