Store: Morrisons, Giffnock, Glasgow
Store manager: Brian Hogg
Opened: 2008
Size: 36,000 sq ft
Market share: 8.6%
Population: 532,029
Grocery spend: £56.47
Competitors: 137
Nearest rivals: Aldi 1 miles, Asda 2.4 miles, Co-op 1.1 miles, Iceland 1 miles, Lidl 0.1 miles, M&S 1.9 miles, Morrisons 1.2 miles, Sainsbury’s 0.4 miles, Tesco 1.2 miles, Waitrose 2.7 miles
Source: CACI. For more info visit www.caci.co.uk/contact. Notes: Shopper profiling is measured using Grocery Acorn shopper segmentation. Store catchment data (market share, population, expenditure, spend by household, competition) is within a five-mile radius.
For CACI’s shopper segmentation of the other stores we visited this week see the online report at www.thegrocer.co.uk/stores/the-grocer-33
How long have you worked in retail? I’ve been at Morrisons since 2005. I went through the graduate scheme, became a senior manager and had various store roles from there. I worked in area management roles in regional support specialist positions for a period and came back into stores at the end of Covid. I’ve been in Giffnock for the past 10 months.
Tell me about the store? Giffnock is one of the busy, affluent areas of Glasgow. The demographic round here is mixed. We’ve got large proportions of Jewish and Asian customers and lots of families, so it’s quite a variety. We’ve got 180 colleagues across the store, which is significantly more than most stores of a similar size. But quite a lot of that resource is for the delivery operation, so pickers, drivers, team leaders etc.
How extensive is your delivery operation? Along with Livingstone, we’re one of the largest home delivery operations in Scotland. We’ve got a five-van operation morning and evening. We pick 50,000 items over a seven-day period. It’s a massive part of the store, and makes up around 20% of our sales. It’s a purpose-built hub, so it’s been built to be that efficient.
You’ve won on Easter weekend, how was it? This year it felt like it was busier for us, especially at the very end of the weekend. Collectively the team have done a great job in terms of service. We had a good range of Easter eggs right up until Sunday – we got that perfect and were able to maintain a full seasonal aisle, which went down really well with customers.
What’s been the biggest change in store since CEO Rami Baitiéh joined? What we’re trying to do here is increase the pace and focus of change. All the changes have been to enhance availability and the customer journey, which he’s brought real energy to. It’s going back to real basics of retail, and we’re starting to see some of the rewards of that coming through.
What are examples of that? Simple things like where baskets are located around the shop. We’ve now got them in the middle aisle and the back aisle, strategically placed in certain areas. It’s really thinking about the customers and where you would want to find a basket if you came into store. That’s a small change, but it’s having a big impact. The placement of chairs and tables around the store has been another. We’ve made sure certain demographics of customers can rest while they’re doing their shop.
You’re also doing customer roundtables each month. What has the feedback been? A simple one has been the location of the newspapers – they wanted them to be relocated for ease of entering and leaving the store. The stand was in front of the kiosk. But it’s been moved to create a better walkway, and so it’s further into the entrance. It was a quick and simple move that made a difference. Other feedback has been about queues at specific times and days, certain ranges or key items they would like us to have. There’s lots of positive feedback as well, it’s not all improvements! For example on Market Street and our café.
What’s your main focus now we’re past Easter? What’s immediate for us is Passover. We’ll be focusing on that for the next four weeks, and focusing on our summer ranges too.
No comments yet