Store: Morrisons Newport Road, Cardiff
Store manager: Tom Hillier
Opened: November 2014
Size: 28,500 sq ft
Population: 366,083
Grocery spend: £8,994,563.48
Spend by household: £57.40
Competitors: 92
Nearest rivals: Aldi 0.5 miles, Asda 2.6 miles, Co-op 1.2 miles, Iceland 0.5 miles, Lidl 0.3 miles, M&S 0.2 miles, Morrisons 3.1 miles, Sainsbury’s 0.4 miles, Tesco 1.0 miles, Waitrose 2.1 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.
Tell us about your career with Morrisons. I’ve been with Morrisons for 19 years. I started as a 16-year-old lad way back when my job was to fill the milk shelves on a Saturday. I became a store manager seven years ago, and funnily enough my first appointment was in this store. I did that for two years, then went away to do some projects for the company, and returned six months ago.
How did it feel to come back? It was really strange because obviously it was all the same faces, the same great team as when we opened this store. It was easier for me from a personal perspective as I’d already built those relationships, and I knew the strengths and weaknesses of the store and understood the customer demographic.
What have been your key achievements since rejoining the store? I think my key successes have been in really driving great store standards and great service in the shop. We’re not the biggest shop in the world, so that gives us time to really focus on being attentive to the customers. Driving service and availability is really key at the moment for me because obviously we’re in a very price sensitive time with the cost of living crisis and, while price is something that’s out of our control, we can give the customers a great experience while they’re here.
How is Morrisons’ latest round of price cuts going to affect your customer base? We’re in a highly built-up student area so during the day we get a lot of student trade. In the evening, because we’re on the outskirts of Cardiff, it switches – the young professionals leaving work will then come to us for convenience on their way home. The feedback we’re getting on the current price crunch, from not just the students but the older population and the young professionals, is that they are noticing Morrisons is reacting with them in mind.
How is trade changing now we’re transitioning to autumn? It’s still getting busier. Our Deliveroo service has got extremely busy as it gives students that convenience of having a Morrisons order on their doorstep in 20 minutes. Everybody is looking forward at the moment, and people are being very price-conscious. But people are also starting to prepare for Christmas now. They want to spread their shop over a couple of months so the smaller ambient lines around seasonality are starting to pick up.
Has your vegetarian and plant-based offering changed in recent times? There’s been a huge increase in demand and obviously we’re seeing it at the shelf edge. The customers are telling us the products are great and that we do a really good range. Morrisons has got a good core range and the feedback on those lines is really good, especially from the younger shoppers.
Do you have any store-specific sustainability-focused initiatives going on at the moment? We’re really working hard on how we recycle our products, sending plastics back, returning cardboards, etc. Our community champion has sustainability really high on her agenda.
We also make sure we’re supporting schools and the local community with more fruit and bottles of water, because sadly some children do go to school with very little lunch.
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