Store: Waitrose Ponteland
Store manager: Richard Bevans
Opened: 2009
Size: 12,095 sq ft
Market share: 28.92%
Population: 111,821
Grocery spend: £2,734,164.56
Spend by household: £56.90
Competitors: 18
Nearest rivals: Aldi 4.1 miles, Asda 4.2 miles, Co-op 1.3 miles, Iceland 4.0 miles, Lidl 4.9 miles, M&S 3.9 miles, Morrisons 4.3 miles, Sainsbury’s 0.1 miles, Tesco 3.9 miles, Waitrose 6.8 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
What has been your career trajectory at Waitrose? I came across to Waitrose when it bought a number of Somerfield stores. That was about 15 years ago and I was the branch manager in Ponteland when that store was acquired by Waitrose. I’ve worked in Hexham, Buxton and Leeds, and then eventually went back to managing Ponteland about 10 years ago. I’ve been here ever since.
What distinguishes Waitrose Ponteland? It’s a great store in a great location. Ponteland is very much a village location. The people who live here are real foodies – they know their ingredients and are very concerned about animal welfare and sustainability. And they like a bargain, as everybody does. Ponteland has been a great store for me personally because I enjoy food myself, I’m a huge foodie. In the years I’ve been in the store, we’ve forged some great links with the local community.
What are the key challenges you’ve faced in branch? I think the biggest challenge we’ve faced in Ponteland – and I think it’s similar for everybody – is looking at our range and deciding what route to go down. Our store is an OK size, but you always want a little more space to be able to do different offers. We had a refit in November in the branch and that was great in helping us maximise our use of space and be able to introduce some new ranges. I’ve been trying for a number of years in the branch to capitalise on some of the changes in food trends. With my local knowledge of the area and what customers were trying to buy, we doubled our range of vegan and vegetarian products, added an enhanced range of wine and added dry-aged beef. This has gone down tremendously with the customers and helped us move the branch forward.
What are your plans for the store for the next year? We brought in some new services in November, and as part of that we introduced a delivery operation into the branch. Over the next year we’ll be considering how we leverage that in the best way. The delivery operation has been really successful. It’s a very different type of customer, so it can be a bit strange because the customer might have never set foot in the store. The customers who come into the shop tend to come in more frequently and they’ll buy smaller baskets and shop more frequently for tea for tonight and maybe the weekend, whereas a lot of the customers who shop online get a bigger shop for the entire week, and we’ve got to think about how we process those orders. It’s an interesting challenge looking at the orders coming down because shoppers can order up to midnight the day before, so you don’t always know how many items you’re picking. It’s a real art trying to get that side of it right. We’re focused on how we can give them the best experience, from the availability of the goods, to the freshness of the produce we pick, to the service we offer on their doorstep.
What offers do you have for Valentine’s Day? We’ve launched our Valentine’s deal this week and I have to say I think it’s the best one we’ve ever done. It’s a £20 offer and includes products such as grass-fed beef and MSC fish. We’ve got some cocktails in there this time – my particular favourite is a passionfruit martini.
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