Duty manager: Tom Shafi
Store: Tesco Gorton, Manchester
Opened: 2008
Size: 62,000 sq ft
Market share: 6.5%
Population: 928,046
Grocery spend: £21,671,773.03
Spend by household: £56.36
Competitors: 179
Nearest rivals:, Aldi 0.1 miles, Asda 0.7 miles, Co-op 2.4 miles, Iceland 1.3 miles, Lidl 0.8 miles, M&S 2.2 miles, Morrisons 0.8 miles, Sainsbury’s 1.8 miles, Tesco 1.5 miles, Waitrose 5.9 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 does the store reflect the local area? We are a very price-sensitive store. This is a big shop, but it’s a community shop – I call it a hub. The council are starting to spend some money around here, so there’s lots of regeneration, which is needed. Our shop is a pivotal part of that. We’ve just given some of the car park land to the council, which will be used to do events. We also have an indoor market in our car park, which is pretty unique. It’s got lots of stalls and cafés, and brings lots of people to the area. There’s mutual respect between us: we don’t compete with each other, and we work together.
What are some of your popular lines? The Aldi Price Match lines, everyday low prices, and Clubcard Prices are all really key for us. It’s extra important for us to make sure our best deals are highlighted. When you’ve only got £20 to spend, it needs to go a long way. We tend to see an uplift in basket spend closer to payday, but people are very savvy with their money and will absolutely look for the best deals rather than sticking to one brand. We have a diverse mix of shoppers, so we also have a good variety of world food lines that get shopped really well. Whenever there are offers on oil or chapati flour, we find it drives big bulk purchases, because it’s great value.
Our shopper noted there have been some changes to the layout of the store… We had a Yo Sushi counter put in last year. It’s been more successful than I thought it would be, given we are in such a price-sensitive area. They do extremely well. They work really hard to make sure they do as much sampling as they can to entice people, and have got the price point right. We’ve also had a range change on our deli counter, with some new products.
Availability was fairly low across the board this week, except here. What work have you done? Last year the business tweaked how we measure availability. Previously we measured our ‘star lines’, but that has been broadened to anything that’s sold over a certain amount. Whereas before we were measuring 200-300 items, it’s now thousands. We’ve got a great ordering system, but it’s only as good as the information you give it in store.
Have you felt any knock-on effects of Storm Bert? No. Our distribution network is world-class. Even with the little bit of snow we’ve had, transport has been brilliant. It gives us real confidence that going into Christmas, we will be absolutely on it.
So how is Christmas prep going? It’s busy, we’re starting to see volumes increase now. There’s a lot going on this week, and not just because it’s Black Friday. It’s kind of the last week you can buy Advent calendars and Christmas trees, so we see different areas of the store getting shopped more. The business give us a great budget, so we have some great plans for colleagues and to provide some surprise and delight for customers. Whether you necessarily celebrate Christmas or not, people still want to get involved. I’ve seen during my time at Tesco that increasingly shoppers who are Muslim or Sikh, for example, still see Christmas as an opportunity to celebrate with family and friends. They choose to do it a bit differently, but they still might buy an Advent calendar or selection box.
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