Tesco Sandhurst: Grocer 33 store of the week

Your store is one of Tesco’s biggest. Is that a good thing? Only Pitsea and Slough are bigger. The size of the store works to our advantage. We sit on a site with an M&S and a Next and people see us as a destination store. We are not miles out of town but we do get people coming from long distances to shop here, as well as more local customers.

How long does the average shopper spend there? Officially the maximum time in our car park is three hours but we don’t strongly enforce it because a lot of customers would happily spend five hours in these stores. They eat here, shop for clothes at Next, M&S and our F&F and then stock up with their food shopping last. I’ve got 980 car parking spaces so it’s something I can live with. For the sake of a few people who may abuse it to go to the nearby train station, it’s worth it for the those shoppers who spend hours shopping

How was bank holiday trade? Very busy. Customers had made up their minds the weather was going to be good and there was a great combination of people stocking up for the bank holiday and parents stocking up with stationery and other Back to School items. I was very pleased that despite being so busy we had great availability.

How is availability at the store compared with this time a year ago? It’s improved massively. We are averaging 1.5-1.7% better on availability than we were.

What are the latest updates to the store? We’ve brought in four new scan as you go tills and are ramping up technology in the checkout area. Of our 33 tills, 16 are self service and 12 scan as you shop. Customers love it and are embracing the new technology as a way to save time at the tills.

How has the new contactless Clubcard gone down? Very well. I’ve had no negativity whatsoever. It’s much more efficient and it’s put the focus back on Clubcard again.

Are you pleased to see Ruth Jones and co back in the TV ads for Clubcard? I think the new ads are better than when the family was first used. They are short and to the point and get a good message across about Clubcard.

Has the Food Love Stories campaign driven sales? We see a massive spike whenever a recipe is featured at the front of store. An example was one of the oils used in cooking one of the recent recipes, which saw a 250% increase in sales. It’s not gone down since, which is the really good thing. A lot of that is down to the in-store execution.

You joined from Sainsbury’s five years ago after 15 years there. Why was that? My ultimate aim is to emigrate with Tesco. This is a fantastic store but I’d love to work in Thailand. I’d like to have the chance to experience a different culture.