Store of the week: Morrisons Bathgate

The last time your store won the Grocer 33 you had been on holiday - were you around this time? Yes, I was on duty on Sunday when your shopper came into the store. I’m thrilled it was such a great shopping experience as we had a really tricky start to the day with a lot of staff members off sick. But I’m really glad to say the team rallied round and we quickly got back on track.

So this really was a great team effort? Totally. The store has only been open for three years and this is the second time we have won. That doesn’t happen unless you have a really strong squad of excellent people behind you. I’m also lucky that I have a really visionary area manager that I report to.

What changes have taken place at the store since our last mystery shop? Just recently we have had all the clutter taken out as part of a national plan to make stores easier to navigate. We also had new PoS put in. The feedback has been that the store is now a cleaner, clearer, fresher environment. Last month we had our first five out of five store rating, which is based on feedback from shoppers.

The big news at Morrisons of late is the I’m Cheaper campaign. What impact has that had in your store? No-one has slashed as many prices as we have. Feedback has been great and footfall has definitely gone up since we made the cuts. Of course, with so many price cuts you would expect sales to be down by value but I can say our volumes have improved.

The World Cup starts next week but without Scotland - is there still excitement north of the border? It’s a real shame Scotland has not qualified but this is a great footballing nation and we are all going to be watching the games. It’s going to a be a beer, snacks and pizza frenzy for the next few weeks. With the football and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow we are expecting a very busy summer.