Trinity Square, Gateshead (18 Dec 2011)

It may have taken over a year to get started following the Get Carter car park’s demolition, but building work at Gateshead’s Trinity Square is now proceeding apace.

Construction of the £150m development only began at the start of November, but the speed of progress has been impressive since I photographed the first section of steel frame less than two months ago (below), close to where the car park entrance ramp used to be.

Start of construction at Trinity Square, Gateshead (4 Nov 2011)

That part of the scheme now towers over the adjacent three-storey New Century House (formerly the Co-op department store; now Argos and other shops), giving a first sense of the development’s scale along West Street – what is currently, to all intents and purposes, Gateshead’s main shopping thoroughfare. As well as the steel frame, concrete floors and staircases are also starting to go in.

Trinity Square from West Street, Gateshead (18 Dec 2011)

Further down West Street, another section of Trinity Square is taking shape opposite the existing Iceland and Heron Foods stores.

Trinity Square from West Street, Gateshead (18 Dec 2011)

Overall, it’s possible to start making out the shape of the scheme on the ground in relation to the numerous artists’ impressions that the developer, Spenhill (a subsidiary of Tesco), has made available, even if the images do make West Street look unfeasibly wide. When complete, the development will include a 175,000 sq ft Tesco Extra store, an additional 170,000 sq ft of new retail and leisure space (comprising up to 42 shop units and kiosks), over 750 parking spaces, and a 993-room student village. I understand that several well-known retail names are already lined up for the scheme, though one or two are likely to be relocations from older or overrented space elsewhere in the town centre.

Artist's impression of Trinity Square from West Street. Image courtesy of Spenhill

Unsurprisingly, the Trinity Square development has both its fans and its detractors. When I blogged about the scheme back in July last year, one reader, Seamaster, lamented the demolition of Owen Luder’s iconic car park, while James lambasted my assessment that “the Tesco store is properly integrated, visually and physically, into a wider scheme that is bold and modern.”

Anyone who follows my blogs or tweets will know that I’m not always an enthusiast of Tesco. However, from the perspective of both a retail commentator and a Gateshead resident, I stand by my positive view of the development. For me, the scheme’s unashamedly modern design and scale is much more successful, for example, than the strange modern-classical hybrid adopted by Newcastle’s recent Eldon Square extension (below).

Clayton Street frontage, Eldon Square (16 Feb 2010)

The potential of a monolithic Tesco development also seems to have been avoided, both in terms of physical connectivity and the mix of uses.

Jackson Street, Gateshead (18 Dec 2011)

With regard to the former, the plan and images show additional shops lining West Street and High Street, as well as a new store-lined street that will connect West Street to High Street via the new town square. Together with a further pedestrian link, to Jackson Street (emerging beyond Hutchinsons in the photograph above), these connections should ensure that Gateshead town centre’s existing businesses – including recent arrivals such as Poundland (in the former Woolworths) and Wetherspoon’s – benefit from the extra footfall that the development is bound to generate.

Overall, Spenhill predicts that the scheme will result in an increase in the town centre’s retail turnover potential from £74m to £160m, and that Gateshead’s RetailVision CentreRanking will “improve by over 500 places”.

New Poundland store, Gateshead (21 Sep 2010)

In terms of the mix of uses, the development also seems to get things right. In addition to the retail space, the introduction of leisure uses and a sizable student housing component should help to address two of Gateshead town centre’s other flaws – a very limited bar and restaurant offer, and next to nothing in the way of town centre housing, both of which currently create an eeriness and lack of activity at night.

Poster at Trinity Square, Gateshead (18 Dec 2011)

For now, however, Gateshead shoppers still have to wait a few years longer before the development is complete. The latest issue of Gateshead Council News reports that the current Tesco store will close in mid-2012, with the new store (on much of the same site) opening in spring 2013, and the student housing being completed in summer 2014. A temporary Tesco (probably in the Metro format, given the unit’s size) is expected to operate from the old Kwik Save site in the High Street in the interim.

Former Kwik Save, Gateshead (18 Dec 2011)

Apart from the buzz that the students on site will bring to the scheme, Trinity Square will mean that Gateshead’s other residents also finally have a town centre that is a viable place to shop and go out in, rather than always having to head to Newcastle or Metrocentre.

At a time when Mary Portas and others are encouraging us to support and regenerate our local high streets, bringing Gateshead town centre back to life – through a bold mix of retail, leisure and housing – must surely be a good thing.

Notice by travelator, former Big W, Loughborough (15 Dec 2011). Photograph by Steve Hack

Loughborough’s former Big W at The Rushes Shopping Centre may have reopened as a Tesco in February last year, but Soult’s Retail View reader Steve Hack recently spotted a fragment of the building’s Woolies past that lives on.

In the car park, a notice by the travelator still informs shoppers that payment can be made at the Pay Station located on the “Upper Level in front of Big W”. The sign conjures up a vaguely amusing image of customers wandering around in vain looking for the aforementioned Big W – after all, even before Woolies went bust in 2008, the Loughborough store (#1254), just like Stockton and others, had long since been rebranded as a plain ‘Woolworths’.

As in other locations, such as Newark, the opening of Loughborough’s edge-of-town Big W in 2002 prompted the closure of the town’s established Woolworths store (#226) at 39-40 Market Place, in premises now occupied by Primark.

While a dwindling number of stores left vacant by the chain’s collapse retain their Woolworths signage, it’s surprising quite how many other – and less obvious - Woolies clues survive, even when the stores have been taken over by other retailers. Needless to say, if you spot any similarly interesting bits of Woolworths history feel free to post a comment below, drop me an email, or send me a tweet!

Closing-down poster at Newgate Street Co-op, Newcastle (2 Dec 2011)

Newcastle city centre’s Co-op supermarket is to close down this month, bringing to an end nearly a century-and-a-half of Co-operative presence in Newgate Street. Posters in the windows and instore – which I spotted while passing by yesterday – reveal that the store will ‘cease trading as a Co-operative’ at 6pm on New Year’s Eve (31 December).

Former Co-op department store, Newgate Street (16 Feb 2010)

The food hall is the last remaining part of the former Co-op department store, which closed in 2007, and there has been speculation about its long-term future ever since – both in terms of its competitive position and the expected redevelopment of the building in which it sits.

For many years, the Co-op was one of a handful of supermarkets in Newcastle city centre – alongside Marks & Spencer’s food hall and the now-demolished Safeway (previously Presto) in Clayton Street – and had the advantage of the biggest range and longest opening hours of the lot.

Sainsbury's Local, Gallowgate, Newcastle (10 May 2011)

More recently, however, competition has intensified, with Waitrose opening in nearby Eldon Square and Tesco Metro taking a unit roughly where Safeway used to be in the redeveloped Eldon Square South. Reflecting the national trend of big grocers moving into convenience, the city has also seen a proliferation of smaller supermarkets, including two Sainsbury’s Locals (in nearby Gallowgate and at Central Station) and a Tesco Express (Eldon Garden), as well as a recently opened Londis Metro in Grainger Street.

While the environment around it has shifted, the Newgate Street Co-op has failed to keep up. Even two years ago, I described the rump supermarket as feeling “unloved and behind the times”, noting the “bored-looking staff, long queues (as usual), and numerous broken light fittings that create an overall feeling of gloom.”

Old 'Food Hall' signage, Co-op, Newgate St, Newcastle (9 Nov 2009)

Despite the apparent lack of investment or attention to detail inside the store, last year’s replacement of the old ‘Food Hall’ signs with ones bearing the new ‘Co-operative Food’ identity suggested that the Co-op might, in fact, be planning on staying around for a while. Indeed, even when long-awaited plans for the building’s re-use for retail, hotel and leisure were approved earlier this month, it was stated that the Co-op’s food store would be retained as part of the scheme, despite plans for a new (but much smaller) Co-operative Food store, in the old Envy unit in Market Street, having come to light a week earlier.

New Co-operative Food signage (20 May 2010)

Nevertheless, the Co-op food hall’s surprise closure in Newgate Street is likely to facilitate the Redbox-designed plans to revamp the iconic building that it occupies. The shop’s strange position within the property – largely the result of having to screen it off from the abandoned department store and stair towers – would always have necessitated some reconfiguration and resulting disruption to business.

So, what of the redevelopment itself? First of all, it’s important to appreciate the extent and interest of the existing property. While the Grade II-Listed Art Deco section facing Newgate Street – built from 1931-32 to replace the original 1870s premises, and extended by three bays in 1959 – is the most familiar part of the old Co-op department store, there are also some noteworthy Grade II-Listed buildings around the corner in St Andrew’s Street.

St Andrew's Street buildings, former Co-op, Newcastle (9 Nov 2009)

As David Lovie notes in his useful (but now quite old) ‘The Buildings of Grainger Town’ book, these were built in 1902 as an extension to the original 1870s Co-op store, so are the oldest surviving part of the property. Happily, these will be given a new purpose as the entrance to the 231-bedroom Travelodge that is set to occupy the upper-floor space within the 150,000 sq ft scheme.

St Andrew's Street buildings, former Co-op, Newcastle (9 Nov 2009)

According to the useful project update on the architects’ website, a gym is expected to occupy the basement, while the ground floor will house six retail or restaurant units. Interestingly, the piece – which also assumed, at the time, that the Co-op supermarket would remain in place – states that “all tenants but one have already committed to the scheme”, which will no doubt prompt all sorts of speculation about who might occupy the space.

The property’s location next to The Gate leisure complex means that restaurants or bars are an obvious choice, but its position in relation to recently opened big-name stores - opposite Debenhams and New Look, and close to Next – makes fashion retail a possibility.

All in all, then, it’s difficult not to be positive about the plans for the property. A historic building is going to be brought back into use after five years of near-vacancy, while the promised ground-floor uses should help generate street-level activity and footfall in Newgate Street. Meanwhile, any loyal Co-op shoppers look set to be catered for by a small store elsewhere in the city centre.

For all that the present Co-op supermarket is unlikely to be widely missed, I hope that the rather clinical head-office posters announcing the store’s closure will be replaced in due course by something more bespoke. After all, when a business has traded from the same site since the 1870s – supported by generations of Newcastle families – shoppers surely deserve a warmer expression of gratitude than a passing ’Thank you for your custom’.

Tesco in Eger, Hungary (15 Jul 2006)

Today’s release of fairly weak UK trading figures from Tesco – where like-for-like sales, excluding petrol and VAT, fell by 0.5% in the first half of the year – has unsurprisingly prompted much media discussion, both about Tesco specifically and the state of the UK economy more generally.

Tesco’s coverage hasn’t been helped by rival grocer Sainsbury’s revealing that its own like-for-like sales, excluding petrol but not VAT, rose by 1.9% in the first six months of the financial year (a measure for which the equivalent at Tesco was a 0.5% rise).

As new Tesco boss Philip Clarke noted, there’s no doubt that retailers across the spectrum are having to eke every penny of spend out of cautious shoppers at the moment, with further gloomy figures on household consumption released today. The big question, however, is why the UK performance of Tesco – a retailer that has long been the behemoth of the British supermarket sector – is seemingly lagging behind that of major rivals such as Sainsbury’s.

Tesco Express, Lyme Regis (4 Sep 2011)

Before trying to answer that question, it’s worth reminding ourselves that Tesco as a whole remains a phenomenally successful business. Today’s figures showed that the company made a profit of £1.9bn in the first half of the year, on group sales of £35.5bn – a performance that most retailers can only dream of. Tesco’s store estate comprises more than 5,300 shops – half of those overseas – and it is now the third biggest retailer in the world, with a strong presence in Ireland, eastern Europe, Asia and the US. And for all that its UK performance is below par, Tesco’s market share remains more than that of Asda and Morrisons combined – thanks in no small part to the efforts of its 200,000 UK staff. As a homegrown international success story, Tesco has given the UK much to be proud of.

Tesco in Košice, Slovakia (2 Sep 2008)

However, it’s the business’s very immensity that also contributes to some of its present challenges. The perception that Tesco is simply too big – and too powerful – is widely held, not least here in the North East where it owns much of Gateshead town centre and holds the key to the centre’s long-awaited regeneration. There are clearly some shoppers who refuse to shop at Tesco for that reason.

In the UK, a significant chunk of Tesco’s growth in recent years has been built on expansion in non-food. This served the business well in the good times, but has arguably left it more exposed than its rivals now that discretionary spend is under pressure. There is also, I would suggest, some sense that Tesco’s expansion into new categories – whether that’s non-food, banking or used cars – has allowed others, such as Waitrose and the hard discounters, to up their game and become the innovators in the core grocery business.

Tesco-owned One Stop, Crewkerne (10 Sep 2011)

I touched upon some of Tesco’s challenges in grocery when I recently blogged about the Asda Price Guarantee, and Tesco, like Asda, is having to fend off rivals at both the premium and value ends of the market. For all its investment in price – including the eyecatching Price Drop campaign announced last month – my reckoning is that Tesco still faces an uphill struggle to be perceived as cheaper than Aldi, Lidl or even Asda. The proliferation of higher-priced Tesco Express stores – and the growth of the supposedly even dearer One Stop ‘stealth fascia’ – surely don’t help this perception. In contrast, Asda’s clear message about charging the same prices in its smaller stores as in the larger ones helps to cement its own value credentials.

What about quality? Here too, Tesco arguably has work to do. Just among my own circles of friends, I often hear perceptions of Morrisons being better than Tesco in fresh produce; Sainsbury’s as being a more ‘upmarket’ shop in general; and Waitrose – still a relatively recent entrant to ‘the North’ – as excelling in speciality products and treats. In contrast, Tesco’s dalliance with being ‘Britain’s biggest discounter’ and its recent launch of ‘venture brands’ – its own in-house products, but without a Tesco branding – overlaid with the familiar Value, mid-tier and Finest ranges, arguably create a confused picture of what Tesco stands for.

One of Tesco's discount brands

The one area where Tesco beats all its rivals is its long-established loyalty scheme, Tesco Clubcard. Reportedly boasting 15 million active cardholders, Clubcard provides the retailer with an unrivalled snapshot of UK consumers’ shopping habits, as well as a means of communicating targeted news and offers to its customers. Given the importance of Clubcard, the decision last week to scrap the Double Points promotion – and invest the money saved in immediate Price Drop reductions – is a bold if risky one. Tesco’s reckoning, perhaps, is that investing in loyalty is only worthwhile if shoppers are actually loyal – and don’t go off to Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons or Waitrose instead.

Back in the days when Prunella Scales’ Dotty was the face of Tesco’s TV advertising, there was a warmth and clarity about the Tesco brand – and even an affection for it – that has got rather lost in the intervening years. Today, Tesco’s rather cold and soulless stores seem like a metaphor for the brand.

Whether the recently announced initiatives will clarify what Tesco stands for – and win back those customers who have started to establish new shopping habits elsewhere – remains to be seen. However, given Tesco’s deep pockets, immense experience as a retailer, and past record of success, only a brave observer would write off its present efforts to bring the UK business back on track.

Point-of-sale promotion of the Asda Price Guarantee

Judging from the number of hits – currently 900+, and rising – many of you enjoyed my recent illustrated post about Asda’s Old Fold Road store in Gateshead, following its impressive transformation from a Netto.

While the increase in product lines and instore services is one of Asda’s selling points at its converted Netto sites, another is its pledge that “all newly converted Netto stores will charge the same low price as every other Asda in the UK.” This means that smaller Asda Supermarket sites, just like their full-size counterparts, are covered by the much publicised Asda Price Guarantee: the company’s pledge to be “10% cheaper on your comparable grocery shopping” than Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons or Waitrose.

Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

At the same time as I was checking out the Gateshead store’s new look, Asda challenged me to carry out a £50 shop instore – to put the Price Guarantee to the test, as well as seeing whether it really was possible to do a full weekly shop in a compact Asda. So, how did I get on?

My shopping list

Coffee at Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

To make the test as real as possible, I prepared a shopping list comprising many of the items that I buy on a regular basis and needed to buy anyway, including fresh fruit and veg, storecupboard items (e.g. olive oil, coffee, baked beans), crisps and nuts, household items (e.g. handwash, toilet rolls), frozen foods, cat food and wine, as well as ingredients for that evening’s dinner (sausage and mash).

A couple of qualifiers

Asda billboard, Gateshead (26 Jun 2011)

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not usually an Asda shopper, but in the supermarkets I do visit – mainly Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Aldi – I tend to go for own-brands over branded products. The ‘comparable grocery shopping’ proviso of the Price Guarantee reflects the fact that while it’s easy to compare the price of branded products in different supermarkets, own-brand comparisons are more tricky due to variations in pack size, ingredients or other characteristics. To ensure that my shop included as many comparable items as possible, I was therefore prepared to buy a few more branded items than would usually be the case.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the shop took place on 6 August; inevitably, all the prices and offers that I mention can only ever be a snapshot of that particular day, and may well have changed – up or down – since. All the photos are from two days later, when I returned to the store – unladen with shopping – for a more detailed look around.

Finding what I wanted… and a few other things

Pesto at Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

By and large, I was able to find everything on my list, though I did have to make a few substitutions where my chosen brand wasn’t available. For example, I couldn’t find any Pears handwash, so bought a similar Baylis & Harding product (£2) instead. I couldn’t see any Sacla green pesto either, so decided to abandon the pesto rather than opt for the slightly cheap-looking Asda own-brand alternatives.

Handwash at Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

In some other categories – such as meat sausages, vegetarian sausages, redcurrant jelly and, more surprisingly, potatoes – the options instore were a little bit limited, and you might well choose to go to a larger store if you were after a wider range or particular brands. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine that the old Netto on the site would have sold vegetarian sausages or redcurrant jelly at all.

Belvoir Elderflower Pressé at Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Alongside the items I planned to buy, I was also tempted by a few of the offers that grabbed my attention instore. Mr Muscle Window & Glass Cleaner (500 ml) for £1 seemed like a great deal, as did Belvoir Elderflower Pressé (75 cl) at two for £3.50 (compared to £2.20 for one) and Taylors of Harrogate coffee at two for £5 (instead of £3.28 each). The branded wines (Blossom Hill at £5 and Echo Falls at £4) also seemed keenly priced.

Finally, my cat, Sebastian, did well out of the shop too, with the price for Iams (£3 for 1kg) looking very attractive compared to what I normally pay.

In total, my shop comprised 38 different products, and came to £68.77 once the ‘two-for’ discounts were deducted.

Wanting to enter the details of my shop online… but not until tomorrow

Asda Price Guarantee website welcome screen (6 Aug 2011)

Watching the rather cheesy TV ad for the Asda Price Guarantee, you can be forgiven for thinking that all you need to do is arrive home, gather the other mums around, and immediately start comparing each others’ receipts.

The reality is a little less exciting, especially as you have to wait until at least 6am the morning after you shopped before inputting your details at the Asda Price Guarantee website. At the moment, neither the receipt nor the Price Guarantee website homepage flags up that you can’t compare your prices straight away; it’s only mentioned once you reach the ‘Enter your receipt details’ page via the welcome screen’s ’Enter Receipt’ button.

This, I would have thought, has potential to cause disappointment and annoyance, yet would be easily remedied by changing the receipts to read “Check your receipt online from 6am tomorrow at…” instead of the current “Check your receipt online at…”

Putting the Price Guarantee to the test… and interrogating the data

My shop *is* 10% cheaper (7 Aug 2011)

Needless to say, I waited with baited breath until the following morning when – finally – I could enter and check the details of my shop, a process that is clearly explained and takes just thirty seconds or so to complete. So, was my comparable shop 10% cheaper than it would have been at Asda’s competitors? Yes, it was, as the results screen above happily declared.

How my shop compared (7 Aug 2011)

Given the prominence of the ’10% Cheaper’ promise within the Asda Price Guarantee, I found it a little strange that the main results screen showed the difference between my Asda shop and the equivalent elsewhere in terms of actual money saved, rather than percentage. Hence, I could see (above) that my comparable items would have cost £8.87 more at Tesco or £6.62 more at Morrisons, but beyond knowing that the saving must be at least 10%, the precise percentage difference was not made clear.

Another thing that immediately struck me was the fact that I’d apparently saved £7.61 compared to Waitrose, but £8.87 compared to Tesco. Did this mean that Waitrose was cheaper than Tesco for the items I’d bought? Actually, no, it didn’t at all.

Receipt comparison details: Asda vs Tesco (7 Aug 2011)

For each of the other supermarkets, clicking the ‘View details’ link brought up a more detailed, item-by-item price comparison. Pleasingly, only three of the 38 items I bought turned out not to be comparable with any of the other supermarkets, a much smaller number than I expected.

The store-by-store breakdown showed that while the Price Guarantee had been able to compare 31 of my 38 different items against Tesco, it had managed to compare 29 against Sainsbury’s, 28 against Morrisons, and only 23 against Waitrose. If you’re interested in the full detail, I’ve created a PDF (Table 1) that shows the price comparisons for all the items that I bought.

In other words, the headline saving of £8.87 against Tesco was based on comparable items costing £54.27 at Asda. In contrast, the headline saving of £7.61 against Waitrose was based on a much smaller comparable basket, costing £39.89 at Asda. Hence, while it’s fine to compare the headline figures for any one of the other supermarkets with Asda, it’s not fair to compare those competitors with each other, simply because the basket sizes being compared are all different.

Tesco store, Gateshead (18 Jun 2010)

Asda would probably point out, of course, that the whole point of the Price Guarantee is only to compare its own prices with those of competitors, and that it doesn’t claim to compare, say, Tesco against Waitrose or Tesco against Morrisons. That’s fine, but I wonder how many other shoppers would have drawn the same initial Tesco vs Waitrose conclusion as I did from those headline figures?

Certainly, it’s another reason why it would make more sense for the initial results page to show the percentage savings relative to Asda’s competitors, rather than actual cost savings that have potential to confuse. Currently, however, the actual percentage savings against the other supermarkets are not stated anywhere in the results – I had to work them out myself by copying and pasting the data into Excel.

Morrisons came closest to beating the Price Guarantee

This is surprising, as in my case, at least, the statement that “Your comparable grocery shopping is 10% cheaper than Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose” actually underplayed the true extent of the saving. In percentage terms, Morrisons came closest to beating the Asda Price Guarantee, where I saved ‘only’ 12.2% by shopping at Asda. Tesco was next best (14% cheaper at Asda) followed by Waitrose (16%) and finally – perhaps surprisingly – Sainsbury’s (16.1%). Again, my PDF shows the detailed data from which I calculated these percentages.

Taking the impulse buys out of my comparison

Iams at Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

As I noted above, there were quite a few items in Asda that I bought on impulse because they seemed like really great deals. It turned out, for example, that the £3 bag of Iams was £1.41 cheaper in Asda than its nearest competitor (Sainsbury’s), and a full £2.50 cheaper than Waitrose [see full breakdown]. While great for me, as the customer, including such items in the test inevitably gives Asda a head start in meeting its ’10% cheaper’ pledge.

So, what happens if I exclude those impulse purchases from the comparison and just test the Price Guarantee on the items on my shopping list? Well, Asda still came out top, but obviously by a bit less than before:

• 5.9% cheaper than Morrisons on my comparable shopping-list items
• 7.8% cheaper than Tesco
• 10.1% cheaper than Sainsbury’s
• 10.3% cheaper than Waitrose.

I’ve prepared a second PDF (Table 2), which makes clear the items that I excluded from each comparison. Again, bear in mind that the percentages above are only really meaningful in terms of comparing Asda to each of its competitors, not the competitors with each other.

Testing the data a third way 

Of the five supermarkets, Waitrose was cheapest on the fewest items

Having established that Asda was indeed cheapest across both my entire shop and the shopping-list items, I thought it would be interesting to look at which of the five supermarkets was cheapest on a product-by-product basis. You can see the results of my analysis in a third PDF (Table 3).

For each of the 35 comparable products that I bought, I ranked the five stores 1 to 5, where 1 was the cheapest supermarket and 5 was the most expensive. If two or more stores tied for the cheapest price, then both were ranked 1. If a product was only available at, say, three of the five stores, then I ranked these 1 to 3. So, which supermarket came out best by this measure?

Impressively, Asda ranked #1 for price on nearly two-thirds (23, or 66%) of the 35 comparable items that I bought, and was #2 on all but two others. Only the iceberg lettuce (cheaper at both Tesco and Morrisons) and the McCoy’s crisps (cheaper at Tesco and Sainsbury’s) let the side down.

Of Asda’s competitors, Tesco ranked #1 on 13 (i.e. 42%) of the 31 comparable items that I bought, while Morrisons was close behind with #1 ranks on 11 (39%) of 28 comparable items.

In contrast, Sainsbury’s (#1 on 7 (24%) of 29 comparable items) and Waitrose (#1 on just 4 (17%) of 23 products) performed least well by this criterion.

Conclusions

Self-service checkouts, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

My test has exposed a few ways in which the Asda Price Guarantee website could potentially be improved, most notably in signposting the overnight wait more clearly, and in limiting scope for misinterpretation by presenting the headline savings against Asda’s competitors in percentage rather than cash terms. Where Asda is significantly more than 10% cheaper, as it was in my case, it also seems odd for this to be underplayed.

These quibbles aside, the Asda Price Guarantee is clearly a worthwhile and quite fun tool that is relatively easy for customers to use, and that helps Asda makes its point about price.

Whichever way you look at it, it’s also hard to dispute that I got a good deal by carrying out my weekly shop at Asda. The Price Guarantee’s ’10% cheaper’ pledge worked as promised – even in a small-format Asda Supermarket – and the analysis of my particular shopping basket, using my three different methods, seems to demonstrate the keenness of Asda’s prices relative to its competitors. Value is, and always has been, a key componenent of the Asda offer, and the Price Guarantee helps to ensure that Asda’s price credentials are widely understood among shoppers.

Herein, however, lies the problem. If Asda is indeed the cheapest of the big grocers, and shoppers recognise this, why is it continuing to lose market share?

Aldi and Lidl continue to gain

Could it be that in bigging up its Price Guarantee, Asda is actually attacking the wrong target? Look at the latest Kantar Worldpanel data, and the big gainers continue to be Aldi (with annual sales growth of 24.4%), Lidl (up 13.8%) and Waitrose. As Tesco and Asda slip, Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose have each recorded record market shares of 3.6%, 2.6% and 4.3% respectively.

My analysis indicates that Waitrose struggles to compete with Asda on price – but no-one would really expect otherwise. Shoppers love Waitrose for the customer service, the pleasant store environment and the quality products that you simply can’t get anywhere else.

Meanwhile, Aldi and Lidl win no awards for their store interiors, but the shopping experience is quick and efficient, and the stores are thriving as shoppers discover own-brand products that are eyecatchingly cheap yet surprisingly high in quality. A Price Guarantee based on ‘comparable’ items is therefore slightly undermined when shoppers are increasingly buying exclusive and ‘incomparable’ products from Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose.

Price is important, of course – especially in economically challenging times – but so is the quality of the products and the overall shopping experience. Asda, I would argue, needs to focus increasing attention on these last two factors.

One of Tesco's discount brands

Tesco’s reaction to the rise of Aldi and Lidl was to launch its own Discounter range, which worked for a while but came across as desperate, and muddied the chain’s “good, better, best” own-label strategy. Asda, wisely, has avoided such a confused approach, opting instead to highlight the price credentials of its existing ranges through the Price Guarantee.

Crucially, Asda has also started to recognise that the quality of its own mid-tier brands – or, at least, customers’ perceptions of the quality – is one of the areas where it is weakest relative to its competitors, and where Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose all present a threat. Asda’s response has manifested itself in the ‘Chosen by You’ label, launched last year, though extending the brand to too many categories – such as refuse sacks – does risk undermining any potential benefits.

Large Asda at Gateshead's Metrocentre (31 Mar 2010)

However, even once it’s convinced potential customers of its keen prices or improved quality products, Asda needs to keep getting more of those customers through the doors – possibly a bigger hurdle than you might think.

Chatting to my friends and colleagues about retail, as I have a habit to do, their first reaction to Asda often relates to it being a busy, stressful and unpleasant shopping experience – a point that I’ve previously made myself in relation to the vast Metrocentre store at the opposite end of Gateshead. It’s hard to know how widely-held this view is, but it’s a factor that drives at least some shoppers elsewhere.

If that’s the case, the small-format Asda Supermarket model may have unintended benefits. As I remarked after my visit to the new Gateshead store, there is something rather nice about shopping in an Asda that is attractively laid out and isn’t overwhelmingly large and busy. Could this, as much as the range and convenience, account for the converted Netto stores’ apparent uplift in sales to date?

If it is, it may well be through the growth of the Asda Supermarket format – rather than the traditional sheds, packed with non-food – that Asda succeeds in turning around its shrinking market share.

Notice at Netto North Shields (8 Aug 2011)

I paid my first visit to an ex-Netto Asda Supermarket last weekend – more of which in the coming days – but meanwhile the process of converting 147 Netto sites by the end of November continues apace.

North Shields is one of the many Netto stores that’s been mentioned in the 60-plus-strong comments thread attached to one of my earliest posts about Asda’s acquisition of Netto, back in January. Passing by on Monday, I noticed that the store is now in the midst of a ‘Clearance Sale’, ahead of its closure as Netto on Saturday 20 August. After a two-and-a-half week makeover, it will then reopen, as an Asda Supermarket, on Wednesday 7 September.

Netto in North Shields (8 Aug 2011)

Back in June, the Chronicle newspaper ran an article under the headline “Supermarkets ‘are swamping North Shields’”, in response to one independent trader’s frustration over the growth of the big multiples in the area. While it’s true that North Shields has large Tesco and Morrisons stores on its outskirts, the town centre, to be fair, has been fairly poorly served to date.

Co-op in North Shields (8 Aug 2011)

Alongside Netto in Saville Street, the town’s main thoroughfare of Bedford Street plays host to branches of Heron Foods, Iceland and a decent-sized Co-op. However, many shoppers seeking a better balance of range, quality and value seem to head across the Tyne to South Shields’ Asda or Morrisons, judging by the carrier bags that I spot every time I use the Shields Ferry.

Morrisons, South Shields (30 Apr 2011)

Of all the Netto sites that Asda has acquired, North Shields’ has the advantage of occupying a modern building with dedicated parking, yet in a very central location right opposite the town’s Beacon Shopping Centre. If the store’s conversion to Asda encourages more people to stay in North Shields for their weekly shop then that’s certainly something to be welcomed.

New Poundstretcher, Llandudno (8 Jun 2011). Photograph by Dave Roberts

Many thanks to my North Wales contact, Dave Roberts, who has sent me a photo of the former Alworths store in Llandudno being converted into a Poundstretcher.

When Poundstretcher’s purchase of 15 failed Alworths stores was announced last month, the stores in Llandudno – which was briefly seized by bailiffs in March – and Evesham were the only ones in Alworths’ 17-strong estate to miss out.

However, it seems that there’s subsequently been a change of plan in the North Wales seaside town, with new Poundstretcher signage now installed and the old Alworths branding removed from around the doors.

As Dave observes, there’s already a smallish Poundstretcher shop in nearby Upper Mostyn Street, and his assumption is that it will close once the new, larger store opens.

Upper Mostyn Street, Llandudno (25 Sep 2009)

However, there’s always a possibility that Poundstretcher will adopt a similar approach to in Swadlincote, where the converted Alworths holds all the convenience lines such as food, drink and some household goods, and the larger, established store opposite focuses on DIY, garden and furnishings.

Swadlincote's two Poundstretchers (2 Jun 2011). Photograph by Martin Jarvis

Llandudno’s ex-Woolworths site now has the slightly unusual distinction of being on its third incarnation since Woolies’ 2008 demise, with Publishers Book Clearance (complete with lost apostrophe) and Alworths both having been and gone in that time.

Former Woolworths as Publishers Book Clearance, Llandudno (25 Sep 2009)

Closing down sale at Alworths in Llandudno (4 Mar 2011). Photograph by Dave Roberts

Still, the fact that the property has stayed empty for very little time over this period is surely a positive reflection on Llandudno’s appeal as a shopping and visitor destination.

It’s heartening that even in a difficult economic climate for retailers, there are still plenty of growing businesses willing and ready to snap up the right sites in the right locations.

UPDATE, 23 June 2011: After all that, it looks like Poundstretcher ISN’T taking over the site after all – it’s reported that the landlord is doing a deal with Tesco instead.

Former Woolworths (now Superdrug), Redruth (19 Feb 2011)

In my last post I mentioned my February visit to Cornwall, writing about one of the county’s former Woolworths – in Launceston (store #812) – that had closed down many years prior to the chain’s collapse.

When Woolies folded in 2008, Cornwall still had ten trading stores. Most of these – in St Austell (#291), Camborne (#304), Falmouth (#306), Bodmin (#569), Liskeard (#623), Penzance (#651) and Newquay (#730) – had opened during Woolworths’ golden age of the 1920s and 30s, with a further trio – Truro (#836), St Ives (#863) and Helston (#920) – added in the mid-1950s. I visited and photographed several of these stores, which I will feature in future posts.

Besides Launceston, I’m only aware of two other long-closed Cornish Woolworths stores. Intriguingly, both belonged to the historic former copper mining town of Redruth – though I didn’t actually know this until after I’d already paid my flying visit.

Fore Street, Redruth (19 Feb 2011)

Though I had no evidence at the time, I rather assumed that a town the size of Redruth (12,000 people) would have had a Woolworths at some point, so my task while visiting was to identify its likely location. Happily, one of my guesses – and photographs – was the right one.

Redruth’s original Woolworths was located at 72 Fore Street, in rather handsome premises occupied today by Superdrug. I don’t yet have a Woolies store number, but the fact that the 1870s former Trounson’s building predates Woolworths’ occupation suggests a 1950s opening. As I’ve noted before, Woolworths’ prewar town centre stores tended to be housed in purpose-built premises, and those afterwards in existing properties. [UPDATE, 12 September 2011: The 'New Bond' from December 1960 mentions the Redruth store number as 813, which would give an opening date of 1953 - making it contemporary with store #812 in Launceston.]

By way of proof, the ‘F W Woolworth & Co Ltd’ fascia can be made out in a c.1955 shot on the Francis Frith website, while the postcards below show the same building and street, pre-Woolies, during the first half of the 20th century.

Old postcard showing 72 Fore Street, c.1907

Postcard of Fore Street, Redruth, c.1915

Postcard of Fore Street, Redruth, c.1931

As far as a closure date is concerned, one source cites the 1980s. This makes sense, as the latter years of the decade were a time when Kingfisher, who by then owned both Woolworths and (since 1987) Superdrug, switched a significant number of smaller Woolies stores over to its recently acquired health and beauty fascia – hence my speculative photo of what I hoped was the former Woolworths location. The property’s record at the Cornwall Council planning website lists several applications for new signage in 1987 and 1988 (but gives no further details), which would fit with that scenario.

Fore Street, Redruth (19 Feb 2011)

Little more than a decade later, in November 2000, Redruth was – as I only realised after my visit – one of the first places in the country to gain a branch of Big W, located on the outskirts of the town at Station Road in Pool. Kingfisher’s new superstore format brought together ranges from across its fascias – Woolworths, obviously, as well as Comet, B&Q and Superdrug. However, the demerger of Woolworths Group plc from the rest of Kingfisher, on 28 August 2001, rather undermined the Big W concept, rendering the stores as very large Woolworths branches in all but name.

The store lasted barely four years before its closure – with the loss of 133 jobs – was announced in January 2005. Where 14 of the 21 Big W stores – such as those in Stockton and Tamworth – were downsized and rebranded as Woolworths, the seven with permission for food retailing were sold to Asda and Tesco, with the latter picking up the Redruth site. The store shut as Big W on 4 February 2005, opened as Tesco Extra later that year, and continues to trade today. A photo, I’m afraid, will have to follow next time I’m in that part of Cornwall.

You can quibble whether Redruth’s Big W really counts as an ex-Woolworths, given that it never traded under that fascia. However, I wonder whether there are any other localities that can claim to have had two different Woolies shops open and close over the last century, without still having a store in place at the time of the chain’s 2008 collapse? Answers on a postcard please…

Signage at UGO store, Eston (4 May 2011)

Since first meeting them at the UGO launch press conference back in January, it’s been a pleasure to develop a really good relationship with the key people at both the Haldane Retail Group and at Charles Hollywood, the Darlington-based agency responsible for the chain’s graphic design and instore promo work.

In the last couple of weeks, the first of the 20 conversions of Netto stores to UGO have taken place, following on from the trial stores – both former Haldanes-branded shops – at Biddulph and Broxburn. In due course, I hope to be able to visit (officially) one or more of the local UGO stores and to get some interior pics for the blog.

Strongman Geoff Capes at the launch of Biddulph's UGO in February

However, with the first two North East branches – at Eston, near Middlesbrough, and Hartlepool – having already opened, I was curious to check them out as soon as possible.

So, unannounced – but without a Mary Portas-style dark wig – I went along on Wednesday (4 May) to experience and review the two shops, paying particular attention to certain key factors:

• First impressions
• Instore signage
• Product range and availability
• Price
• Customer service.

So, how did the two Teesside UGO stores fare?

First impressions

My first stop was the Eston store, which serves the town’s Whale Hill housing estate and is part of a modern retail block that also includes a Numark pharmacy and a Post Office branch. Though there is some parking close to the store, most people I saw seemed to be travelling to and from the store on foot.

UGO store, Eston (4 May 2011)

Initial impressions were good – bold UGO banners and signage ensure that the shop is hard to miss, even from the top of the road, and the overall treatment of the store exterior makes a smart and vibrant first impression.

I was a little surprised, however, to see shoppers leaving the store with plain white carrier bags. Given the obvious investment in building the UGO brand, it seems a missed opportunity to not use UGO-branded bags. Just by walking down the street, those shoppers on foot could be doing their bit to raise awareness of the local UGO store.

My first challenge at Eston was finding the way in. A lack of signage meant that it wasn’t obvious which of the two doors was the entrance, so I tentatively tried one in the hope that it was the right choice (it was).

Inside, the store is relatively compact – which is fine – though the interior did feel quite gloomy and cluttered, partly as a result of having rather fewer windows than if it were a detached, standalone store. This is a constraint of the property that obviously has to be worked with, but there are almost certainly ways – through lighting and surface treatment – to brighten things up a bit.

UGO store, Hartlepool (4 May 2011)

Hartlepool’s UGO, in contrast, feels rather more typical of a discount supermarket. Located in the Dyke House area close to the town’s main hospital, the store is housed in a functional but modern standalone building with its own car park, and is probably about twice the size of the Eston store. Though there is some housing nearby, my perception was that shoppers would be more likely to travel to this store by car than on foot.

Again, the initial impression is really good, with bold signage and banners ensuring that the store makes its presence felt strongly. After the relative disappointment of the Eston shop’s interior, I was also pleased to find that the Hartlepool store felt much brighter and more spacious, coming across very much like a typical Aldi, Lidl or, indeed, a Netto. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Haldanes used the Hartlepool store in its initial mockup artwork, as it, rather than Eston, was much closer to my expectations of what a UGO store is supposed to look and feel like.

It was almost noon when I visited Eston and gone 4 when I arrived at Hartlepool, but both stores seemed to be doing a steady – rather than a bustling – trade. Despite this, I was oddly struck by the silence in the Eston store, and – despite not usually being an advocate of instore muzak – felt that it could really use some background music to help lift the mood.

Instore signage

Happily, the excellent implementation of the UGO brand – which is highly professional, yet warm and fun – carries through to the store interiors. Again, I felt it was more effective in the Hartlepool store, where the greater brightness and sense of space allows the posters and navigational signage to work really well and be better appreciated.

On the downside, both stores featured some rather scrappy handwritten signage to indicate where items had been marked down in price, and I thought this looked a little incongruous and unprofessional amid the otherwise slick implementation of the brand.

Also, I was puzzled by the prominent use of the abbreviation ‘PMP’ on some of the instore offers posters. As a supposed retail expert, perhaps I should have known already that this stands for ‘price-marked pack’ – basically, a branded product where the offer price is highlighted and preprinted on the item’s packaging. To me it seems a little odd, however, to use retail jargon on customer-facing material.

Product range and availability

At its press launch, Haldanes made great play of UGO being “the icing on the Netto cake”, and talked of the UGO brand and product mix being designed to provide “reassurance” and a “seamless transfer” for Netto’s loyal customers. One key Netto feature – the non-food offers – have, sure enough, been carried through to UGO, and the eclectic mix of suitcases, microfibre cloths and Gino D’Acampo cookware seemed to be attracting plenty of attention in both Eston and Hartlepool.

On the grocery side, Netto’s own-brand products have obviously had to go, replaced by items from Nisa’s Heritage label. As a very infrequent Netto shopper it’s hard for me to judge the impact of this change, but there are bound to be people who will dislike the disappearance of items that they’ve got used to buying. On the plus side, Netto stores have always included a higher proportion of well-known brands than its hard discounter rivals, Aldi and Lidl, which helps to ease the transition.

A key part of the UGO strategy is to make it easier for customers to carry out a full weekly shop, by doubling Netto’s core range of branded traditional grocery lines to around 3,000 SKUs. There was certainly evidence of this instore, with plenty of different items squeezed into the space, and the presence of certain types of product – such as puff pastry (an item I buy often!) – that haven’t traditionally been available from discount supermarkets. Moreover, where items were in stock, there seemed to plenty of them on the shelf.

Overall, however, it was clear that there were some problems with availability and stock replenishment. Both stores had some notable gaps, with the fruit and vegetable aisles especially depleted. Hartlepool, for example, had no avocados or cauliflowers, so if you’d gone along with a shopping list you may well have left the store disappointed.

Price

If being able to use UGO “for all your weekly shopping” is one of the chain’s key messages, the other is surely that of value. After all, the tagline “where the prices is low” is embedded in the UGO logo and fascia.

So, are UGO’s prices low? Again, having not been a regular Netto shopper, it’s difficult for me to be sure how they compare with the store of old. Overall, my impression was that the everyday prices seemed ‘reasonable’, rather than necessarily ‘cheap’.

The prices of the fresh fruit and veg that I looked at – such as cucumbers and tomatoes – seemed to compare favourably enough with what I pay in Aldi or Lidl, while the Heritage-branded items from Nisa looked to be similarly priced to the big supermarkets’ standard own-brand items, rather than any of the ‘Value’ or ‘Basics’-type lines. Presumably when groceries are being sourced from Nisa, rather than Haldanes’ own supply chain, there’s a limit to how far the prices can differ from Haldanes’ eponymous stores or, indeed, any other Nisa-supplied outlet.

In the alcohol aisle, however, I was pleased to see UGO still offering a decent selection of sub-£4 bottles of wine, at both regular and offer prices – this is one of the areas in which Netto was always particularly useful! As might be expected, the different in size between the two stores is apparent here, with Hartlepool seeming to have a far superior wines and spirits range.

Interestingly, where hard discounters (and Asda) have tended to adopt an ‘everyday low prices’ (EDLP) strategy, one of the most notable features of UGO, for me, is its eyecatching offers, which appear to change ever three weeks or so.

UGO offers leaflet

Prior to my visits, I’d checked out the online PDF of the latest offers leaflet from the UGO website, and was struck by some of the great deals on offer. Ones that stood out included two-packs of Frü and Gü puddings for half price (£1.50, compared to RRP of £3.19); 750 ml Innocent smoothies for £1.34 (RRP £2.96 to £3.05); and New Covent Garden soups (£2.19) on buy one get one free.

These are genuinely impressive offers; on my way home, I popped into Tesco in Gateshead where I noted that the same Innocent smoothies were being sold at £2.85; today, the same price was being charged in Morrisons in Morpeth. If I lived close enough to a UGO store, these deals would definitely prompt me to make a special trip, and I can imagine other people using UGO in a similar way to ‘top-up’ their regular grocery shop. On the other hand, you might question how far UGO’s target shoppers in areas such as Eston will care about posh soup and smoothies as opposed to keenly priced everyday basics.

Given the strength and appeal of the offers, I did feel that much more could be made of them instore. I found it hard to locate the soup, smoothies and puddings offers, even though I’d looked at the leaflet beforehand and was keeping a special eye out for them. The shelf-edge signage promoting the offers was relatively low-key, and in Hartlepool there was actually no reference at all to the soup being on BOGOF. UGO’s special offers seem to be one of its real strengths, and I think more can be done instore to really shout about these deals.

Customer service

Commenting on my blog last week, George Wilson remarked that the staff in the Eston store appeared “not very happy” when he’d recently visited, so I was particularly curious to assess the quality of both stores’ customer service.

I was pleased at how smart the staff looked in their new UGO uniforms, but, like George, I was a little underwhelmed by the customer experience. To test the checkouts I bought an item in both stores, armed with a smile and a readiness to engage in conversation.

In Eston, the first staff member I approached seemed to be having trouble with her till, resulting in the person in front having to move his purchases to another checkout. She seemed a little flustered as she told me – perhaps rather abruptly – that “there’s no point in you putting your stuff on this till”. I duly moved over to the next till and paid for my purchase, where the member of staff was pleasant rather than friendly. Based on my experience, I probably wouldn’t go back to the Eston store unless it was my local shop.

In Hartlepool, my experience at the checkout was similar; the service I received was adequate rather than exceptional – polite and perfunctory, rather than warm. I noted that the customer in front of me seemed to be complaining about certain items they wanted not being in stock, and there’s always a danger that this frustration from shoppers rubs off on the staff. If the availability issues can be quickly sorted, happier customers will hopefully lead to cheerier staff. Whatever the reasons, however, it does seems that there’s still a bit of work needed if UGO is to deliver on its promise – stated in the press pack that I received in January – to concentrate “huge effort on delivering the very best in customer service.”

Conclusion

Signage at UGO store, Hartlepool (4 May 2011)

To be a success, UGO needs to keep happy as many as possible of Netto’s customers while simultanously attracting new ones – no mean feat for any business taking over another retailer’s stores.

Having tried out the UGO experience, two particularly positive features stand out for me. The first is the implementation of the UGO brand, which is excellent throughout. Carrier bags and handwritten signs excepted, UGO has managed to develop a bold, distinctive and highly professional look and feel for the brand, carried through from the welcoming store exterior to the instore signage and offers leaflets.

UGO store, Hartlepool (4 May 2011)

The other real positive is UGO’s special offers. Some of the deals on the products that I regularly buy are among the best I’ve seen in any supermarket, and the chain’s marketing – externally and instore – really needs to celebrate these, perhaps through explicit price comparisons with other retailers, rather than less easily understood references to RRP.

As far as negatives are concerned, issues such as brightening up the Eston store interior or making sure the tills work are easily fixable. However, the crucial area for improvement is ensuring that the stores have in stock the products that people are expecting to find.

Haldanes, rightly, sees an opportunity to drive footfall and sales at UGO by offering a wider product range than Netto ever did, making it a place “for all your weekly shopping.” As the business finds its feet, delivering on this promise will be key. The danger, otherwise, is that shoppers will get out of the UGO habit as they head off to Morrisons in search of their cauliflowers and avocados.

Netto, Birtley (24 Jan 2011)

When Asda’s sale of 39 surplus Netto stores was announced a couple of weeks ago, I noted that Birtley – a small town close to here, within the Borough of Gateshead – was home to one of the eight remaining Netto stores that Asda is still required to divest by the OFT.

As I explained then, the closure of the town’s nearby Somerfield store following its purchase by Morrisons in 2009 – and Morrisons’ failure to then reopen it – has left its 11,000 strong population unusually reliant on a single discount supermarket. What happens to Birtley’s Netto is therefore of considerable importance to the people who still use the Durham Road area for their local shopping.

Durham Road shops, Birtley (24 Jan 2011)

Given that independent grocer Haldanes has bought more than half of the divested Netto stores to date, I took the opportunity, while meeting the firm’s bosses, to quiz Chief Operating Officer Richard Collins on whether Haldanes had any interest in the Birtley store.

Netto, Birtley (24 Jan 2011)

He confirmed that Haldanes had visited the shop, and that he considered it to be a “great store” with good parking. Pressed further, he said that Haldanes had no specific plans to acquire additional stores from the OFT’s divestment list, but refused to rule out making a future bid for the Birtley store.

Birtley Netto’s problem is that many of the potential purchasers would seem to be ruled out due to the proximity of their existing shops. Clearly Asda isn’t in the picture, given that it has to divest the store in the first place, while Morrisons – which still owns (and is trying to dispose of) the vacant Somerfield site opposite – is unlikely to be interested.

Tesco, Chester-le-Street (24 Jan 2011)

Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s has a superstore three miles away at Team Valley, and Tesco and Iceland (and Morrisons) have shops at Chester-le-Street, the same distance away in the opposite direction. This only really leaves other discounters – Lidl, Aldi or Haldanes’ new UGO venture – in the frame. However, with a larger supermarket development still possible on the Somerfield site in the future, a hard discounter is, in any case, more likely to be able to compete with whatever new store might open on that site.

Closed down Somerfield, Birtley (24 Jan 2011)

Given the positive feedback from Haldanes, it seems that if the shoppers of Birtley fancy their Netto becoming a UGO, then it’s in their hands to do something about it.

Haldanes’ bosses are reading this blog, so feel free to share your thoughts below, or drop Haldanes a line directly. Who knows, perhaps Soult’s Retail View can harness local people power to help attract an expanding retailer to Gateshead?

Morrisons store

The Netto store in my old hometown of Tamworth is one of 16 sites that Morrisons is set to acquire following Asda’s purchase of the Netto UK business. The stores are among 47 that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has required Asda to sell to competitors, to avoid a lessening of consumer choice in those areas where Asda and Netto currently compete with one another.

With Asda already having a vast store at the nearby Ventura Retail Park, it was always likely that Tamworth’s Netto would be one of those that it would have to dispose of. However, with Sainsbury’s, Aldi, M&S, Iceland, Farmfoods and Tamworth Co-op also all currently represented in either the town centre or at Ventura, there was a fairly limited pool of potential purchasers.

Morrisons already has a Tamworth superstore in Marlborough Way, Wilnecote – a couple of miles from the centre of town – but its purchase of the Netto site should give a boost to the town centre’s retail offer by providing a much wider range of goods than Netto currently offers.

Gungate Precinct with Kwik Save store in the early 1990s

The purchase by Morrisons is the latest development in a fairly turbulent history for the Upper Gungate supermarket site, which was originally built as a Kwik Save in the 1990s. For a time, it was open concurrently with the previous, smaller Kwik Save in the Gungate Precinct – a unit that had housed Tesco and Victor Value back in the ’70s and ’80s. However, that Kwik Save store eventually closed, and was occupied by Pound Plus until the precinct’s demolition last year.

Following Somerfield’s disastrous 1998 purchase of Kwik Save, the Upper Gungate Kwik Save briefly became a Somerfield, before being turned back into a Kwik Save again. The store then closed down following Kwik Save’s collapse in 2007, standing empty for a year before being reopened as a Netto in August 2008.

Assuming that Asda’s acquisition of Netto receives final approval by the OFT, the handover of Morrisons’ stores is expected to commence on a phased basis in March, with conversion to the Morrisons format taking three months. On this basis, Morrisons should be trading from the site sometime in summer 2011.

Given Morrisons’ retail pedigree, there’s every chance that the store’s latest incarnation will be more long-lived than its increasingly fleeting predecessors.

Former Woolworths (now Iceland), Belper (23 Dec 2010)

Following on from my 2009 visit to Alfreton, Heanor and Ripley in Derbyshire, I was able to pay a fleeting visit this festive season to the nearby town of Belper – famous for its history of textile making, and today part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site.

Conveniently, the town’s former Woolies (store #725) is right next to the bus station where I arrived, and is not hard to spot. Opened on 20 May 1938, its frontage is almost identical to that of the Alfreton Woolworths (#684), which opened a year earlier.

Side view of former Woolworths (now Iceland), Belper (23 Dec 2010)

Like the North East Woolies sites in Hexham and Morpeth, Belper was one of the first stores to be taken over by another retailer, as part of the package of 51 sites acquired by Iceland just three days after the final Woolworths stores closed down. For a town with a compact centre and a population of little more than 20,000, this does mean that Belper has four decent-sized supermarkets – Iceland, Haldanes, Midlands Co-op and a large Morrisons – within a short distance of one another. On this basis, you do have to question – as campaigners already are doing – whether the town’s potential 80,000 sq ft edge-of-centre Tesco superstore is really necessary.

Haldanes, Belper (23 Dec 2010)

With Haldanes’ fledgling chain – currently comprised entirely of former Co-op/Somerfield sites – stalled for the moment at