Duty manager: Pete Brown
Store: Sainsbury’s Maidstone
Opened: 2000
Size: 29,720 sq ft
Market share: 12.7%
Population: 198,265
Grocery spend: £5,407,715.99
Spend by household: £66.86
Competitors: 37
Nearest rivals: Aldi 0.5 miles, Asda 0.5 miles, Co-op 0.5 miles, Iceland 0.1 miles, Lidl 0.5 miles, M&S 0.3 miles, Morrisons 2 miles, Sainsbury’s 1.3 miles, Tesco 0.3 miles, Waitrose 1.6 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
You’re new to the store… Yes I’ve been back here three weeks. I’ve worked for Sainsbury’s for 28 years since I left school. Maidstone was actually the store where I had my first leadership role, 25 years ago. It’s been a tough week for the store so I’m glad the team have got this result. A customer had a heart attack in the store on Wednesday, and our colleague Amanda administered first aid, and used a defibrillator. She saved her life.
How would you describe the store? It’s a busy town centre store. We’ve got the bus depot and shopping centre just to the side, and the high street a little bit further along. This is typically much more of a food store compared to other larger Sainsbury’s branches. We have some GM, which is complemented by our Argos concession, but no clothing. Home delivery is roughly 20% of our total sales. We still get a lot of shoppers coming in for large baskets, but the location means we also get a lot of ‘pop in and out’ shops – be that people travelling to work or people visiting the town. There’s also a large park nearby called Mote Park, which hosts regular events throughout the year. This is the nearest store that visitors will go past on their way there.
You must be delighted summer is finally here? It was a busy weekend, there was a music festival in the park. Your shopper came in just before the rush on Saturday morning. Typically, we’ve seen a combination of shoppers coming in the moment or planning ahead. If the sun is shining, our summer eating and picnic ranges do well. Recently gardening, outdoor toys and garden furniture have also been doing well. People are also buying ahead for back to school.
Sainsbury’s has gone through significant changes over the past three years. What has made the biggest impact? It’s difficult to call out one thing. There was a reflection within the business that our prices were too high. Work on that has been key. Our partnership with suppliers recently has also helped with our price position. From an availability perspective, the Blue Yonder system that we’ve got now has really made a difference. We’ve tried different ways to drive better availability, over a number of years. It feels like we’ve hit the nail on the head this time.
Sainsbury’s has stripped out most of its manned tills and rolled out self-checkouts. What’s the balance in store? The store went through its front-end programme 12 months ago. We increased the number of self-checkouts, but still retained five main bank tills, as we would call them. We offer Smartshop on mobile, rather than through handsets. Last week we were one of the stores to introduce the new AI technology, as part of the new Next Level checkout upgrade. It’s an upgrade to weighing products. Instead of just a scale, a video will scan and do the same verification. I’ve got a full briefing on it this week, but I understand it will improve the shopping experience and make service faster. It’s an upgrade of the technology we’ve got available to us.
How have you been preparing your team in light of the far-right riots? We’ve been fortunate, as Maidstone hasn’t been directly impacted. All I’ve said to the team is that you need to put your own safety, and customer safety, first.
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