Winner: Sainsbury’s West Hove, East Sussex
Deputy store manager: Matt Lee
Opened: 1992
Size: 50,000 sq ft
Market share: 21.4%
Nearest rivals: Tesco - 0.5 miles; Waitrose - 2.6 miles; Morrisons - 3.4 miles
Store data source: Analysis by CACI. Call the market planning group on 020 7602 6000

 

Are you pleased to have won? I feel absolutely delighted, it’s a fantastic result and the team is ecstatic. It’s a great result for the company, and the seventh win in a row. And it’s an even better win, as the boss is away.

How long have you worked at Sainsbury’s and what’s the best thing about your job? I’ve been at Sainsbury’s for 14 years and West Hove for two. The best thing about my job is working with people, which I love.

You scored highly on shop floor service. What do you do to keep standards high and motivate staff? Every day we have a huddle where we do a store journey as if we were mystery shoppers and talk about sales. It’s also an opportunity for us to celebrate successes.

The BRC reported this week that food and drink sales are up 1.3% driven partly by the warm weather. Have you seen an increase in sales and how have you coped with increased demand? We’ve definitely experienced increased demand over the past few weeks. Sales have been fantastic for us - beers and wines in particular, as well as soft drinks, salads and barbecue food. Wine sales have also been driven by our 25% off of six bottles offer. We handle increased demand by keeping in regular contact with forecasters and retail support to make sure we’re stocked up.

What is doing well in store at the moment, apart from summer products? Back to school is doing particularly well, driven by deep discount offers and bogof deals. Our figures show that sales have increased 12% year on year.

Your biggest competitor, Tesco, is just half a mile up the road. How do you keep a competitive edge? We go to Tesco once or twice a week to look at their service, stock and front of store. Then we talk about what Tesco is doing and how we can counter that - we also speak to our customers about their experience in our store. We do a lot in the local community, too.

Topics