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.

Wellchester's Claire Robertson (8 Sep 2011)

For someone who makes a habit of visiting old Woolworths – and I’ve racked up about 140 so far – there can be few ex-Woolies sites more celebrated than the one in Dorchester (store #403).

The story is well known: former Woolworths store manager Claire Robertson was hailed as a heroine of the downturn when she reopened her old shop as Wellworths, gave most of the staff their jobs back, and became a TV documentary star and chum of radio DJ Chris Evans. In turn, Claire’s actions paved the way for other ‘sons of Woolies’ to be born – including Smallworths in Selsdon, Wee W in Stornaway, and the shortlived Alworths chain – while Chelmsford’s Faith girls were inspired to (briefly) reincarnate their collapsed store as Hope.

Wellchester (with old signage) in Dorchester (8 Sep 2011)

Two-and-a-half years later, Wellworths remains a fixture on Dorchester’s South Street, though today (16 September) marks the start of a new chapter as it rebrands itself to Wellchester.

As I reported back in November, the move was necessitated by Shop Direct – owner of the Woolworths trademark since the chain’s collapse – who argued that the Wellworths brand was too similar to its own, and insisted that Claire curtail any expansion plans if she wished to retain the use of the name. Rather than face this limitation, the new Wellchester brand was born – celebrating the place where the business started, while still ensuring that it can be known as Wellies for short.

New and old logos

A week before the relaunch, I finally visited (the then) Wellworths to meet Claire and to take a guided tour around her store. Well used to dealing with the media by now, Claire is as delightful and professional as you’d expect, and her passion – for her staff, for her store, for Dorchester, and for retail in general – comes across strongly. I also detected a steely determination and a sense of not taking any nonsense – surely a valuable combination of assets for anyone seeking to build a fledgling retail business into a long-term success.

Almost since Wellworths was first launched, the media has speculated about possible expansion for the business. Claire confirmed to me that she is on the lookout for additional sites in the Dorset area, and has one or two locations in mind, though nothing suitable has become available as yet. It’s clear, however, that making the Dorchester store as successful as possible – and avoiding an Alworths-style overexpansion – remains Claire’s focus.

Pick 'n' mix at Wellchester (8 Sep 2011)

The store itself is an interesting mix of the old and new. On the shopfloor, the wooden flooring, ex-Woolies shelving and core product categories – such as toys, stationery, homewares and the iconic pick ‘n’ mix – ensure that Wellies retains a distinct whiff of Woolies.

Kitchenware aisle at Wellchester (8 Sep 2011)

The generally professional feel of the instore signage, visual merchandising and shelf labelling also gives the impression of a business that is much larger than just a single store.

A bit of Woolies heritage at Wellies (8 Sep 2011)

Upstairs, in the staff and stockroom areas, the Woolworths heritage is more explicit. Claire pointed out the old noticeboard outside the staff room, which retains its Woolies logo and the slightly odd strapline ‘People serving people’ – presumably a fairly fundamental principle for any retailer.

Wellchester's stockroom, Dorchester (8 Sep 2011)

Meanwhile, in the stockroom, Claire revealed that most product categories are stored in the same locations as they were in the Woolworths days, and that staff often still refer to them by their Woolies department numbers. Old habits, it would seem, die hard!

Yet for all the reminders of the past, Claire’s tailoring of ranges for the local market ensures that Wellies has grown into a store that feels very much a part of its community and has developed a personality of its own. Some of this is no doubt down to Claire’s own prominence and visibility; while I was touring the shopfloor with her, for example, she was approached by a customer who clearly knew who she was and wanted her to direct them to the shoe polish aisle.

Inside Wellchester (8 Sep 2011)

As Claire took me around her store, many of the most interesting stories related to how the shop’s ranges have been tweaked over time in response to customer demand, with new categories introduced, and some established ones expanded or reduced. Claire highlighted this as one of the big differences between Woolies and Wellies – moving from a format where store managers had limited power over the products that customers were offered, to one where Claire and her team can respond decisively if categories are underperforming or show further potential.

Groceries at Wellchester (8 Sep 2011)

Near the tills, for example, Claire has recently introduced a small range of groceries from Booker’s Euro Shopper value range. This features everyday products such as tinned foods, biscuits and jams, and is apparently proving popular.

Entertainment and confectionery at Wellchester (8 Sep 2011)

Though always a staple of Woolworths’ offer, entertainment is another category that Claire chose not to bring in at Wellies in the beginning, but has subsequently introduced in response to customer demand. The primary reason for not stocking CDs and DVDs to start with – the wafer-thin margins on chart product – remains an issue, and Claire highlighted how a new DVD can be cheaper to buy at Tesco than it is from her supplier. However, she noted that the popularity of the store’s back-catalogue ranges takes off some of the pressure to stock every new release.

Computer accessories at Wellchester (8 Sep 2011)

Another recent arrival is the computer accessories department, introduced on a concession basis but fully integrated into the overall look and feel of the store. This has apparently been more successful than expected, and is going to be expanded further in the coming weeks.

Picture frames at Wellchester (not stationery...) (8 Sep 2011)

One department that I was bound to ask about was picture frames, which everyone remembers from the 2009 How Woolies Became Wellies documentary on BBC One. The programme charted the run-up to the store’s opening and Claire’s recruitment of a young buyer – since departed from the company – who memorably filled an entire aisle with picture frames of every size and type. Happily, his legacy lives on in what Claire admitted is one of the store’s most popular product categories, recently supplemented with a small range of canvas prints.

Childrens' clothing at Wellchester (8 Sep 2011)

Children’s clothing, in contrast, is an area that Claire highlighted as performing less well than hoped. Like entertainment, it was another ex-Woolies staple that Wellworths hadn’t initially stocked, but later introduced in response to customers’ requests. I noticed that items were being cleared at 40% off marked prices, and Claire told me that she plans to focus more attention on childrens’ accessories – such as gloves and socks – which have performed more strongly for the store to date.

Wellworths-branded hardware products (8 Sep 2011)

When I visited the store, preparations were already underway for today’s relaunch, and, contrary to what you might expect, Claire explained that the cost of switching names will be relatively low. For example, the store’s business card and letterhead supplies were already running out, while its Wellworths-branded hardware products will be replaced with Wellchester ones as stock is sold through. 

The retention of the logo’s existing typeface and orange and blue colour scheme means that the window vinyls and instore signage – which features the corporate colours, but not the store name – do not have to be changed, and even at the front of the store, the ‘Well-’ half of the fascia can be kept with only the ‘-worths’ part replaced. At the same time, Claire is using the relaunch as an opportunity to tidy up the store’s rear service entrance on Trinity Street, adding signage where previously there was none.

Rear of Wellchester, Dorchester (8 Sep 2011)

Overall then, I was pretty impressed with what Claire and her team have achieved at Wellies. It’s a good-looking, well-stocked store, with many attractive and keenly priced products. Indeed, most things about it – from the product to the presentation – are much better than the slightly disappointing Alworths (now long gone) that I visited in Amersham last year.

Importantly, Claire and the other staff also seem to have a great team dynamic, and exude a real sense of enjoying their work – perhaps not too surprising, given their history of working together back in the Woolworths days.

Inside Wellchester (8 Sep 2011)

Most crucially of all, perhaps, Wellies was busy with shoppers for the full hour and a half that I was there. When Claire first launched Wellworths in 2009, she made the point that Woolworths in Dorchester had always been profitable, and it’s easy to see why. There’s no doubt that the store benefits both from its great location at the heart of Dorchester’s main thoroughfare – next to Marks & Spencer and opposite the independent department store Goulds – as well as from limited local competition in quite a few of its product categories.

Dorchester's busy South Street (8 Sep 2011)

However, in evolving Wellworths into Wellchester over the last two-and-a-half years, Claire seems to have avoided the trap of taking any success for granted, or of coasting along on the back of the store’s celebrity. Through decisive management and the hard work of all its staff, Wellchester has grown – and is still growing – into a store of which both Claire and Dorchester can be proud, and that performs a valuable function on the town’s high street.

Existing Waitrose in Tudor Arcade, Dorchester (8 Sep 2011)

Challenges lie ahead, for sure. Nationally, the economic situation is still flaky, while in Dorchester itself, Simons Developments’ Charles Street Project – set to feature 20 new shops and a replacement Waitrose – will bring both opportunities and competition for the town’s established retailers. Equally, any new Wellchester stores will need to respond to their local communities’ needs in just the way that Wellies in Dorchester has.

However, having met Claire, I certainly wouldn’t bet against her achieving her retail ambitions. Today is a new start for Wellchester, and it will be fascinating to see where it goes next.

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.

Waitrose Jesmond... in Grimsby (23 Aug 2011)

Map blooper stories are always good value, whether it’s because they’ve erased Wales or located Shrewsbury in the middle of a river. Now, potential John Lewis Partners in Lincolnshire may be disappointed to find that Waitrose is not, in fact, about to open a store on their doorstep.

The Partnership’s jobs site highlights upcoming Waitrose locations, including the store in the upmarket Newcastle suburb of Jesmond that is due to open in November. The 7,500 sq ft shop will be the North East’s fourth Waitrose (after Hexham, Eldon Square and Ponteland), but the first to open under the ‘Little Waitrose’ convenience banner.

Existing Waitrose convenience store, Leeds (21 Jan 2011)

However, it seems that not everyone at the Partnership is quite as clued up about the North East. According to the map, Jesmond has been shifted 116 miles down the coast, and is now somewhere near Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire.

I know Grimsby is a major centre for the food industry, but surely the idea is to transport produce from there to the Jesmond store, rather than the other way round?

Interior of Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

While some communities on Tyneside – among them North Shields and Wallsend – still have to wait a little longer for their Netto stores to be turned into Asdas, the process of converting 147 ex-Netto sites into Asda Supermarkets is continuing apace. Stores in Westerhope, Lemington and Gateshead are among those that have been transformed in the last couple of months.

Following on from my ‘undercover’ visits to ex-Netto UGO stores on Teesside and an ex-Netto Morrisons in Tamworth – all among the 47 stores that Asda had to divest for competition reasons – Asda invited me, and my camera, to check out one of the stores that it’s kept and converted over to its own fascia: the shop at Old Fold Road, a mile or so from the centre of Gateshead, which serves the recently built St James’ Village housing development as well as more established, working-class communities in the Felling and Sunderland Road areas of the town.

Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

The focus of this first blog post is the store’s transformation from Netto to Asda, looking mainly at the revamped shop’s layout, ranges, and look and feel.

As well as letting me look around, Asda also challenged me to carry out a full weekly shop in the store and to test the much publicised Asda Price Guarantee: the company’s pledge to be “10% cheaper on your comparable grocery shopping” compared to Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s or Waitrose. I’ll blog about my shopping trip – and reveal whether it was indeed cheaper – in a second post to follow soon.

Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

...and in its former guise as Netto (28 May 2010)

So, what is the store like? Externally, as you might expect, it’s little changed – just like the ex-Netto Morrisons and UGO stores that I visited before. In this case, the Netto signage has been replaced by the new ‘Asda Supermarket’ brand – signalling the store as a smaller-than-usual Asda – while the bright yellow window vinyls have been replaced by similar ones in pale yellowy-green.

The store also retains the slightly unwieldy separate entrance and exit lobbies that were so beloved of Netto stores, and that got me similarly confused in Eston.

Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

However, once you enter the store the extent of the interior transformation becomes clear. The entire shop was gutted and refitted in the impressively short two-and-a-half weeks betwen Netto closing and Asda opening, and it does now feel like an entirely new store.

Interior of Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Configuring the space to accommodate the sheer increase in SKUs – from Netto’s 1,800 product lines to around 10,000 now – would always have made the shop look different. However, Asda’s investment in new shelving, floors, ceilings and wall finishes replaces the slightly dowdy Netto shopfit with a feel that is bright, clean and modern.

Interior of Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Though the deep red walls bring to mind the latest Wilkinson storefit, they (and the matching signage) do work well in bringing some warmth and colour to what could otherwise have felt like a crisp but slightly sterile interior.

Red wall finish and signage, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Inside the store, the logical layout of the entrance area is evidently designed to assist shoppers who are just popping in for one or two items. Newspapers and bestselling magazines are on the left as you go in, followed by a ’Food to Go’ section featuring sandwiches, drinks and snacks.

Newspapers, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

'Food to Go' section, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

On the right are flowers, four self-service checkouts, three regular checkouts, and the kiosk beyond.

Checkouts, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Given the store’s compact size, the kiosk has to perform multiple functions, serving as the customer service desk as well as housing the usual cigarette display and National Lottery terminals. Crucially, it’s also the ‘Click and Collect’ point – a key part of Asda’s strategy to push its non-food offer and build multichannel traffic.

Less logically, spirits are also located at the kiosk – presumably for security as much as convenience purchasing – though their absence from the main wine and beer aisle does make it awkward to buy spirits as part of a full shop.

Kiosk, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Entering the main body of the shop, customers are faced with what seems to be a relatively compact fruit and veg section relative to the ex-Netto UGO and Morrisons stores that I visited.

Fruit and veg section, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

However, the multi-tiered shelving units allow a deceptively wide range of fruit and veg products to be fitted into the space, as well as helping to create a colourful and eyecatching display.

Fruit and veg section, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

In fruit and veg, as throughout the store, value messages are key – Asda, for obvious reasons, is clearly keen to reassure former Netto customers that the prices on everyday items haven’t suddenly gone up.

Fruit and veg section, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Perhaps trying to tap into the current success of single-price retailers like Poundland, banners and shelf-edge labels highlight items costing £1, while hanging arrow signs draw attention to specific offers or ‘SuperPrices’ more generally.

'SuperPrices' sign at Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Apart from fruit and veg, the store’s other major focus of both fresh products and visual theatre is the instore bakery, with an adjacent hot chicken counter.

Instore bakery, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Instore bakery, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Wisely, the bakery is placed in a traditional back-corner location rather than near the entrance as it is in Tamworth’s ex-Netto Morrisons, ensuring that there’s plenty of room both to circulate and to admire the attractive display.

Instore bakery, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

On the downside, the store does lack a meat and fish counter, like the one Morrisons has squeezed into the old Netto in Tamworth; for me personally, as a fresh fish fan, that would limit how often I’d use this particular store for my full weekly shop. To be fair, however, I’m not necessarily the core demographic that this particular shop is catering for, and I’m sure Asda has done its homework in tailoring the store’s offer towards the everyday needs of local shoppers.

Oils and bread aisle, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

The heart of the store is its aisles of ambient products, and it’s here – in categories such as oils and bread – that the increase in both branded and own-label SKUs is really noticable.

The upcoming blog post about my Asda shop will talk in more detail about how far I was able to get all the items on my shopping list. Generally speaking, though, it’s hard not to be impressed by how much Asda has squeezed into the space, including quite a few categories that never used to be represented in Netto.

Magazines and greetings cards, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

I spotted, for example, a pretty extensive display of magazines – complementing the newspapers and bestselling magazine titles by the door – as well as a decent range of reasonably priced greetings cards.

Babywear aisle, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

The overall extent of the non-food range is also surprisingly broad given the store’s limited space. It includes stationery, babywear and underwear, as well as books and entertainment, though the latter two did have quite a lot of gaps at the time of my Monday morning visit.

Books aisle, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

I was also interested to spot a display of non-food ‘SuperBuys’, featuring an eclectic range of luggage sets, scooters and toasters. The deals – and the deliberately ‘home-made’ look of the signage – are obviously a nod towards the store’s Netto heritage.

However, most of the featured items looked like the same Asda-branded products that you’d come across in a larger Asda store, meaning that the SuperBuys lacked some of the sheer randomness and element of fun that make the hard discounters’ non-food deals so popular.

Non-food 'SuperBuys', Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Nearing the end of my circuit, the store conforms to supermarket layout norms by locating the frozen foods and alcohol furthest from the entrance. Unsurprisingly, the frozen section eschews Netto-style chest freezers in favour of upright ones – similar to those seen in Eldon Square’s Waitrose and other compact supermarkets – to ensure that the maximum number of products can be fitted within the space.

Frozen aisle, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Frozen aisle, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Though lacking the aforementioned spirits, the alcohol section is also impressive in its range, and compares favourably with the old Netto offer – including, I was pleased to see, a cabinet of chilled beers and wines. Selling drinks that people can consume straight away seems like an an obvious move, and more often than not the major grocers’ convenience stores do it. However, I’m always surprised at how many larger supermarkets don’t have a chilled drinks cabinet, including M&S – surely the ultimate impulse purchase grocer, and the place where you stock up on your way to dinner parties.

Beers and wines, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

To put things in context, it’s worth flagging up that I’m not usually an Asda shopper, partly because the store nearest to me – at Metrocentre – is overwhelmingly huge, full of children, and a nightmare to drive to. When I do shop there, it’s more often than not to check out the George clothing or other non-food ranges rather than to do a full shop – for which I prefer to go to Waitrose or Morrisons. Asda might well be cheap – more of which in my next post, of course – but at the vast and busy Metrocentre store you do pay for it in increased stress levels.

Having said all that, it’s hard not to be impressed with the new Asda Supermarket at Old Fold Road. The transformation from Netto is remarkable, and Asda’s investment in the store – and, by extension, the local community – is admirable. The attractive store environment, improved ranges and lovely staff – including ex-Netto colleagues supplemented with new recruits – are all big pluses, as is not having to walk around a huge store to find everything that you want.

'Asda in your Community' display, Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Living two-and-a-half miles away, it’s fair to say I probably wouldn’t go back to this particular store on a regular basis. However, if I lived in the area, I’d certainly have no qualms about using the store for either convenience purchases or the bulk of my weekly shop (though preferably on a weekday, when I took my photos, rather than the more hectic Saturday afternoon when I carried out my actual shop).

Interior of Asda Supermarket, Gateshead (8 Aug 2011)

Last week, Retail Week reported that Asda had seen sales uplifts of 50% in its converted Netto stores, and that there were now plans to open 250 more smaller Asda Supermarkets instead of the 100 that had been originally envisaged. It’s not hard to see why sales are buoyant, given the improvement in the shopping environment and offer; indeed, staff at Old Fold Road told me that while former Netto shoppers were still happily coming in, they were also seeing plenty of new people who had never set foot in the store while it was Netto.

In recent history, big supermarket takeovers – be it Somerfield buying Kwik Save, Morrisons snapping up Safeway, or the Co-op buying Somerfield – have rarely gone to plan, typically resulting in disgruntled customers and haemorrhaging of combined market share. However, if Asda can maintain the early momentum across its converted estate – keeping existing Netto shoppers happy while simultaneously attracting new customers from its rivals – this might finally be a retail takeover that delivers on its promise.

Habitat, Bristol (22 Feb 2011)

It’s hard to dispute that the last couple of weeks has been a torrid time for the UK high street, with a succession of well-known names either announcing bad news or collapsing into administration.

While HMV has a stay of execution for now, other retailers in that section of the alphabet – Habitat, HomeForm, Haldanes and TJ Hughes – have teetered, joined by others such as the clothing chains Jane Norman and Life & Style.

Thorntons, Bishop Auckland (24 Jan 2011)

Comet and Thorntons, meanwhile, look set to follow Mothercare’s recent lead in radically slimming down their UK store estates. When Thorntons becomes the most popular trending topic on Twitter, as it was earlier this week, you really know that the high street’s travails have entered mainstream discussion.

So, what are the key headlines from, arguably, the most intense period of bad retail news since a flurry of retailers – among them Woolworths, Zavvi, Whittard’s and Adams – all collapsed in the final weeks of 2008?

Habitat's Tottenham Court Road flagship - which is staying open (6 Apr 2011)

• The iconic furniture brand Habitat, and three of its central London stores, have been bought by Home Retail Group, owner of Argos and Homebase, for £24.5m. However, the remaining 30 UK stores are in administration and threatened with closure, with 750 jobs at risk. Harrogate, Edinburgh and York are among the locations affected, but there have been no Habitat stores in the North East since the Eldon Square branch in Newcastle closed in the late 1980s.

• HomeForm, the private equity-owned home improvement business that owns brands such as Moben, Kitchens Direct and Dolphin filed for administration on 23 June, putting 160 showrooms and 2,800 jobs in danger. Locations in the North East include Darlington, Gateshead, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland.

• TJ Hughes, the Liverpool-based discount department store chain, collapsed into administration on Thursday morning, two days after announcing that it was planning to appoint administrators. The chain has 57 stores, which employ 4,000 people and account for almost 2 million square feet of retail floorspace – slightly more than the entire sales area of Metrocentre. TJ Hughes stores in Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are among those at risk.

• Young fashion chain Jane Norman collapsed into administration earlier this week. On Tuesday, it was announced that Edinburgh Woollen Mill had bought 33 of the 94 shops, saving nearly 400 jobs, with a possibility of buying 28 more stores. However, the remaining 33 sites will close – including the branch in Newcastle’s Eldon Square – and the future of Jane Norman’s 82 department store concessions is uncertain.

• Clothing and homewares chain Life & Style – the rebadged Ethel Austin – collapsed into administration for the third time in as many years last month. 22 of the rump business’s 90 stores are already closing, with 274 staff losing their jobs.

• A week ago, Kesa-owned electricals chain Comet reported a 6.8% fall in sales compared to a year before, and annnounced plans to close 17 stores and downsize 9 others.

• On Tuesday, chocolatier Thorntons revealed that it would close up to 180 shops over the next three years, accounting for almost half of its entire company-owned store estate. The additional 227 franchisee-owned stores are not affected.

All these stories are worthy of a discussion in their own right – and will more than likely crop up again in future blog posts – but, looked at as a whole, what do they tell us about the condition of UK retail right now?

TJ Hughes, Sunderland (7 Sep 2009)

Whenever a familar high street name is in danger, it’s easy to wheel out all the usual arguments about the effects of online shopping, supermarkets’ assault into non-food, and the bane of quarterly rent payments or upward-only rent reviews.

Squeezed consumer spending is clearly also a huge issue at present. The sectors that Comet and HomeForm inhsbit – electricals and home improvement – are both among the most challenging places to be right now, as demonstrated by difficult trading at Dixons, Best Buy’s struggle to make an impression in the UK, and the recent collapse of Focus DIY.

Focus, Consett (4 Jun 2011)

Without a doubt, these economic or market factors have all contributed to the recent bad news, but they don’t explain why some retailers are collapsing when plenty of others are, if not exactly thriving, at least weathering the economic storm. The John Lewis Partnership, for example, today published its healthiest weekly sales figures for some time, with the Delia effect at Waitrose and the launch of the John Lewis Clearance pushing up turnover by 12.5% compared to a year ago.

Just as John Lewis can usually be relied upon to deliver good news, it’s very rarely a complete surprise when a particular retailer goes under. Look at this week’s casualties, and you’ll see that most of them share one or more of the same attributes:

• Lack of clarity regarding the brand or proposition
• A perception of being a ‘legacy’ retailer
• Stronger competitors within their sector
• A reputation simply for being cheap, rather than offering value
• Instability and a lack of strategic direction through constant changes in ownership or management.

Habitat fascia, York (17 Jul 2010)

In its heyday in the 1960s and 70s, Habitat, for example, was truly a design and retail innovator. However, squeezed between Ikea at the value end and Heal’s and John Lewis at the top end, Habitat has since struggled to define its niche. Meanwhile, a shrinking store estate over the years – 33 now, from a recent peak of 42 – has reinforced the impression of a business in decline.

Closed-down Habitat, Birmingham (18 Mar 2010)

Jane Norman, too, has seemingly lost sight of the reasons that made it successful in the first place, with my female friends bemoaning what they see as its move downmarket – a dangerous shift, that brings it into more direct competition with bigger, and cheaper, chains such as Primark, Peacocks and New Look.

Those big names in the clothing sector have also caused difficulties for TJ Hughes and Life & Style – raising their fashion credentials in order to offer customers all-round value, and leaving behind those retailers that have sought to compete primarily on price. Add in Life & Style’s record of previous collapses (as Ethel Austin), and the fact that TJ Hughes has had four owners in the last decade, and there’s little wonder that both have become distracted from what needs to be their core focus – being top-notch retailers.

In Thorntons’ case, many of its difficulties seem self-inflicted, throwing away the upmarket cachet of its brand by spreading itself too thinly. Creating a bloated estate of 600 shops would be unwise enough, particularly when quite a lot of them offer uninspring store environments in unglamorous locations. However, letting your product be sold in supermarkets and Wilkinson was always likely to be a disaster – undermining your brand’s reputation for quality while simultaneously removing the need for shoppers to visit your own stores.

What does all this mean, looking forward? Well, those retail businesses that simply aren’t up to scratch in terms of proposition, brand, strategy or customer experience will need to up their game in order to survive. However, there’s no reason why those businesses that are well-run and have a clear reason to exist shouldn’t continue to prosper.

Former Woolworths (now WHSmith), Pinner, 1 May 2011. Photograph by Bryan Roberts

Many thanks to Bryan Roberts from Kantar Retail iQ, who let me know via Twitter that the old Woolworths in Pinner, north west London, has recently reopened as a branch of WHSmith.

Regular readers may recall that I visited Pinner nearly a year ago, when the old Woolies premises in Bridge Street were then occupied by Poundstar. Just as Poundstar made do with the existing Woolworths shopfront, it looks like WHSmith has similarly done little more – at least on the outside – than add its own signage to the current fascia.

Former Woolworths in Pinner, as Poundstar (14 May 2010)

With WHSmith’s opening, Pinner’s joins the growing number of ex-Woolies locations that are already on to their second occupant since the collapse of Woolworths in 2008. In some places – such as Warrington – this is simply the result of the original post-Woolies occupant going out of business, and another retailer coming in to fill the void.

Elsewhere, however, there are some interesting examples of discount retailers in ex-Woolies premises, more than likely on short-term leases, being replaced by (relatively) more upmarket or better-known names. Waitrose taking over the Alworths site in Amersham is an obvious example, as is Denmark Hill’s 99p Stores being replaced by Peacocks.

Is it just coincidence or local circumstances? An illustration of certain retailers’ relative success or evolving property requirements? Or perhaps a sign of confidence in the retail property market as big names target locations that they may have passed by a couple of years earlier? Whatever the reason, it’s fair to say that Pinner was reasonably quiet on the Friday morning when I visited last year, so hopefully WHSmith’s arrival provides a welcome boost to footfall in a retail centre that, arguably, was never the most obvious location for a pound shop.

One of Pinner’s charms is that it manages to combine a lovely historic centre with a reasonably strong retail and leisure offer. I knew next to nothing about the place before stepping off the train last year, but I was really impressed by the gorgeous High Street, lined with timber-framed buildings housing bars and independent shops.

High Street, Pinner (14 May 2010)

Tucked behind the High Street, there’s also an M&S Simply Food and a good-sized Sainsbury’s, both accessed via discreet archways and reasonably well integrated with the rest of the shopping centre.

Sainsbury's, Pinner (14 May 2010)

My general view is that places like Pinner benefit from having a healthy mix of big-name stores and interesting independents, allowing shoppers to meet most of their everyday needs while maintaining a retail centre that is distinctive and characterful.

Of course, not everyone subscribes to that view. Take those superstores away, and the romantic vision is that shoppers will revert to old-fashioned shopping habits, providing an automatic boost for the local butcher and greengrocer. Here in the North East, however, the example of Wallsend – a town that has been without its main supermarket for the last two years – reminds us that shoppers are just as capable of taking their business to the nearest Morrisons or Tesco down the road.

With this in mind, I was disappointed, but not surprised, to read that WHSmith’s arrival in Pinner has apparently provoked a “backlash” from local independent shopkeepers. Of course, local newspapers thrive on this kind of drama, and we shouldn’t believe everything we read in them. However, the “local indies object to big-name newcomer” story is wearily familiar, and often based on the flimsiest of premises.

Harrow Observer article about "WHSmith backlash"

The article in the Harrow Observer last month reported that “WHSmith is facing a backlash from independent traders in Pinner who fear the stationery giant will steal their customers”, and revealed that “a group of shops selling cards, stationery, books and printing services have written a joint letter to WHSmith bosses over their fears that independent shops like theirs will be undercut.”

On several counts this argument is bizarre. It ignores the fact that some of WHSmith’s ranges – such as stationery and newspapers – are items that Woolworths used to sell from that site without anyone seemingly complaining. Equally, anyone who’s recently been to a branch of Smith’s will recognise that its upmarket (or, some might say, overpriced) cards compete more with Paperchase or Clinton’s than with Card Factory or local independents.

What I find most depressing about this kind of article, however, is the apparent complacency and sense of blame among some indie retailers – the view that “we’ve been here forever, and how dare the big boys come in, undercut us, and nick our customers” – and the implication that everything revolves around price. What about celebrating independents’ potential to offer superlative customer service? Providing a friendly, personal touch and superb specialist knowledge that the big chains simply can’t match?

In the modern world of retailing, no retail business has – or should have – a God-given right to thrive. Success needs to be earnt. Unfortunately, alongside all the brilliant and innovative independent retailers out there, there are still too many that haven’t invested enough in brightening up dismal store interiors, in showcasing product effectively, or in offering more-than-perfunctory customer service. In short, these are shops that have coasted along, reliant on a relatively captive audience, and whose limitations are exposed when a big chain opens up down the road.

Instead of grumbling, Pinner’s indie retailers should therefore be seizing upon the opportunity afforded by WHSmith’s arrival.

Celebrate the fact that a major name has made an investment in your retail centre, bringing a vacated shop unit back into use.

Assuming local footfall increases, tap into this. Bring more customers into your own shop by offering the products that they want, wrapped up with a sense of theatre and top-notch customer service that makes people feel good and want to come back.

But, above all, don’t ask them at the till if they’d like to buy some cheap chocolate.

Woolworths building, West Ealing (24 Nov 2010)

While visiting London last month, I also found time to pay a visit to the interesting shopping area of West Ealing – home, as you would expect, to a former branch of Woolworths.

Part of the London Borough of Ealing, West Ealing is today somewhat overshadowed as a retail centre by the much larger Ealing Broadway, just a mile or so down the road. However, the imposing building that formerly housed West Ealing’s Woolworths store (store #239) is testament to that neighbourhood’s own history as a significant shopping centre.

Purpose built as a Woolworths store and opened in 1926, the West Ealing property is just as handsome as those in Oxford Street or Kensington High Street, with a glorious 11-bay, four-storey tiled façade that would make an impression on any high street.

Former Woolworths (now Poundworld), West Ealing (24 Nov 2010)

The incongruous sight of a tree growing out of the building’s pediment is a poignant symbol of the property’s decline over the years. While Woolworths would have originally occupied the full frontage, the store was just a fraction of its original size by the time it closed on 30 December 2008.

Superdrug – part of the same Kingfisher conglomerate as Woolworths between 1987 and 2001 – still trades from the right-hand portion of the store that was carved off for it in the 1990s. The left-hand part of the property was, until recently, a small branch of New Look; when I visited, the unit was temporarily in use as ‘The Bargain Store’. Meanwhile, the section latterly occupied by Woolworths was taken over in late 2009 by the Leeds-based single-price retailer Poundworld.

Former Woolworths (now Poundworld), West Ealing (24 Nov 2010)

Though it is arguably less well-known than either Poundland or 99p Stores, Poundworld has grown rapidly in recent years to become the UK’s third largest single-price retailer, with just over 100 stores now compared to the 33 that it had five years ago. Apart from West Ealing, the retailer has also taken over former Woolies sites in Castleford, High Wycombe and Nottingham’s Victoria Centre, with the latter reported to be – at 12,500 sq ft – the chain’s largest store to date.

Even before the loss of Woolworths, West Ealing’s high street had seen significant change in recent decades, with the departure of Marks & Spencer in the late 1990s widely seen as an important loss. That site, next to the old Woolworths building, has subsequently been redeveloped and is now occupied by Wilkinson.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to see West Ealing as a retail centre in terminal decline. It’s true that on my walk along Uxbridge Road and Broadway I noted a lot of vacant shops – including the ubiquitous closed-down Ethel Austin – and cheap-looking discount stores. However, there are plenty of bright spots.

Waitrose – a retailer whose presence in a retail centre is just as iconic as that of M&S – operates from a very large, recently rebuilt store in Alexandra Road, though its location, slightly away from the main shopping thoroughfare, presumably restricts the flow of Waitrose shoppers’ trips to West Ealing’s other, smaller retailers – which is a shame.

Arguably, it’s West Ealing’s independent shops that give it the brightest hope for the future. Walking through, despite the visible problems, the area has a cosmopolitan and colourful feel, with ethnic food shops displaying their wares in the street. The West Ealing weekly farmers’ market in Leeland Road – which seemed to be well advertised when I visited – also adds to the area’s reputation as a mecca for foodies, and is apparently its trump card in attracting shoppers from other parts of London.

Primark in Ealing Broadway shopping centre (24 Nov 2010)

Where Ealing proper has big names and the shiny Ealing Broadway mall (anchored by Primark in premises that used to be Beales), it’s easy to envisage a future where West Ealing provides a complementary, food-driven offer that celebrates the area’s independence, cultural diversity and soul.

Incidentally, just as I had to pay a return visit to Kensington to locate the area’s original Woolies, it looks like I’ll have to pop back to Ealing sometime to photograph another old Woolworths that I missed. Walking from Ealing Broadway to West Ealing, I managed to go straight past the former’s old Woolies branch in New Broadway without even realising it.

Now occupied by Iceland, the property has no architectural clues of ever being a Woolworths, but was a comparatively early store (#74), opened in about 1916, before closing down (as I understand it) a couple of decades ago. In between, one of its claims to fame was being converted, in the mid-1980s, to Kingfisher’s experimental Kidstore format – a specialist store for children, based around enlarged ranges of clothes, toys, books and confectionery.

Though the Kidstore concept was never rolled out, its relative success underpinned Woolworths’ later investment in its Ladybird and Chad Valley children’s brands – two parts of the business that were successfully resurrected after Woolies’ collapse under the new ownership of Shop Direct and Argos respectively.

Yet another example of how every old branch of Woolworths has an interesting and unique story to tell – not just about the changing fortunes of its location, but also about the ups, downs and experiments of the Woolworths business as a whole.

Former Woolworths, Horley (4 Sep 2010)

During the summer, I’ve built up a veritable stack of photos of old Woolworths stores, from all kinds of places across the UK – not that you’d necessarily realise from my recent blogging output. That’s the trouble of fine weather – it’s just so tempting to head off and photograph interesting things, rather than staying inside and writing about them.

However, now that winter’s well on the way, and the weather is less amenable for tearing up and down the country, I plan that my blog posts will finally catch up with my camera…

One old Woolies that I’ve walked past lots of times without realising is the one in Horley, in Surrey. Several summers in recent years we have stayed in a friendly B&B in the town before flying out to some eastern European destination from nearby Gatwick Airport. Since the last time we were there, in 2007, a lot has happened, however – Woolworths has vanished from the high street, and my retail interests have blossomed.

Collingwood Batchellor's department store in Horley (4 Sep 2010)

Still, even as a consumer I’ve always had a soft spot for Horley’s town centre – it’s compact and attractive, and has a surprisingly strong retail offer given the town’s relatively small (but, admittedly, affluent) population of just over 20,000 people. Highlights include the delightful Collingwood Batchellor department store in Victoria Road and, just opposite, the unusually large and impressive branch of The Original Factory Shop, housed in a former engine shed.

The town can also claim to be the location of my first ever Waitrose experience, back in 2001 – long before the retailer had made it up here to the North East, and when the most northerly outpost of the Waitrose empire was still Newark-on-Trent. Needless to say, I’ve enjoyed quite a few Waitrose experiences in more recent years.

Horley's attractive High Street (4 Sep 2010)

Back to Woolies though, and it’s interesting that despite Horley’s present-day buzz and prosperity, the town’s Woolworths store (#545), opened in May 1934, was one of the first to close, back in the mid-1970s. Today, the property houses a branch of Boots. However, not withstanding the slightly questionnable blue first-floor windows, the building is in excellent condition, and is the epitome of a purpose-built 1930s Woolworths store – even more than thirty years after the retailer moved out.

Former Woolworths, Crawley (24 Oct 2009). Photograph by Stacey Harris

Interestingly, the Woolies history site, 100thBirthday.co.uk, suggests that the opening of a huge Woolworths store in nearby Crawley (#768), in 1958 – just five miles away – had a negative impact on the Horley store’s trade. The Crawley store, incidentally, lasted until Woolworths’ collapse, and is now – like so many others – occupied by Poundland.

Whereas Poundlands seem to be popping up everywhere, one distinctive feature of Horley’s retail scene is the presence of George Davies’ GIVe collection within Collingwood Batchellor. Launched only in September last year, the label’s fortunes so far have been mixed, with GIVe’s standalone stores all apparently slated for closure. Indeed, the Regent Street flagship, as well as the stores at Meadowhall and Kingston upon Thames, have already gone.

However, the concession model – operating nationwide within Beales department stores, and in just a handful of other independents – has reportedly been much more successful. Certainly, Collingwood Batchellor had an attractive GIVe window display, and the range looked a good fit for the department store’s focus on quality, and for its older and well-heeled clientele.

With GIVe seemingly concentrating on selling through independent department stores, it will be interesting to see whether the collection is introduced into Beales’ new acquisitions – including the former Westgate department store in Rochdale (now renamed as Whitakers), and, of course, the transformed Robbs department store up here in Hexham.

Thank you to Stacey Harris for the shot of the former Woolworths in Crawley, which is © Copyright Stacey Harris, and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Licence.

Existing Kingston store

The much-blogged-about Swedish hardware retailer Clas Ohlson published its sales figures for June yesterday.

What’s interesting is that sales for the UK are now being stripped out from those of Finland, giving us a much clearer idea of how the UK business is doing. Total sales were SEK 442m, of which the seven UK stores accounted for SEK 15m. A year ago, the UK business delivered sales of just SEK 5m, with the June 2010 figures representing a seemingly impressive 176% increase – or 203% in local currency. Sales in Clas Ohlson’s home market of Sweden, in contrast, were unchanged year on year.

The trouble, of course, of eyecatching percentage figures like these is that they are not based on like-for-likes – in other words, the year-on-year comparison takes no account of any stores that may have opened or closed in the intervening period.

To give another example, this is why, at a time when the business is expanding rapidly, the John Lewis Partnership’s trading figures – which again show only the raw increase in sales, not like-for-likes – need to be interpreted carefully. There’s no doubt that both the eponymous department store chain and Waitrose are trading well right now, with the latter’s latest weekly figures, published today, showing a 13% sales increase compared to a year ago. It’s just that once you take out the effect of new stores opened in the last 12 months, the actual sales increase in the established stores is inevitably lower than the headline figure.

Clas Ohlson fascia

Apply this to Clas Ohlson, and you realise that while the June 2010 figures are for seven stores (two of which had, admittedly, only been open for a month), the June 2009 stats are for just two (Croydon and Manchester). On this basis, the threefold increase in UK sales is just about what you would expect, especially since two of the five new stores are the smallest in the estate.

By way of an alternative measure, what happens if we look at each country’s sales figures for June 2010 in relation to the number of stores?

• For the UK, sales work out an average of SEK 2.1m for each of the seven stores.
• Finland has 16 stores and a turnover of SEK 35m – so that’s SEK 2.2m per store, a little higher than the UK.
• There are 42 stores in Norway – with total sales of SEK 182m, that’s an average of SEK 4.3m for each shop.
• The rest of the stores – 56 – are in Sweden. If total sales are SEK 210m, that works out at SEK 3.8m per store.

What does this tell us? Well, it basically confirms the trends that Clas Ohlson highlighted in its own year-end report for May 2009 to April 2010. Here, the retailer notes that “the response from customers to the newly opened stores in the UK has been positive and the number of visitors to date has been higher than the Group average”, but that “the conversion rate and average purchase in the UK have been lower than the Group average, which is generally the case in conjunction with the penetration of new markets.”

Looking forward, the report explains how “Clas Ohlson anticipates that establishing its brand name and position in a completely new market will take time, and that the conversion rate, average purchase and sales will gradually increase in coming years.”

In other words, while the sales densities for the UK stores are indeed currently lower than those of the more established Scandinavian branches, Clas Ohlson’s message is that this is just a normal part of entering a completely new market, and that they’re in it for the long haul.

As more UK stores open, and the Clas Ohlson brand becomes more widely known among British consumers, it will be interesting to see how quickly the UK sales densities can catch up with those in the retailer’s more mature markets.

Former Woolworths (now Alworths) in Amersham (14 May 2010)

While staying in London a couple of weekends ago, Alworths in Amersham (above) wasn’t the only former Woolworths I managed to visit…

Having arrived at King’s Cross, first stop was the St George’s Centre in Harrow, where the large, two-storey former Woolies (store #1198) is still empty. However, Peacocks and Sports Direct are reported to be moving into some of the space, while TK Maxx apparently plans to extend its existing store.

Former Woolworths in St George's, Harrow (14 May 2010)

The supposed presence of Woolworths is still announced on the outside of the shopping centre.

Outside of St George's, Harrow (14 May 2010)

A little further along the Metropolitan line, the old Woolies in the attractive suburb of Pinner (store #706) – seen here in its former guise – is now a Poundstar discount store. It opened as a Woolworths on 8 October 1937, and closed following the chain’s 2008 collapse.

Former Woolworths (now Poundstar) in Pinner (14 May 2010)

Having travelled to the end of the line at Amersham, there was time on the return journey to pay a visit to the old Woolworths in Edgware Road (store #2031). In June 2008, just a few months prior to Woolies’ collapse into administration, the 21,000 sq ft Edgware Road store was one of four Woolworths stores in London to be acquired by Waitrose.

Former Woolworths (now Waitrose) in Edgware Road (14 May 2010)

According to the Woolworths nostalgia site 100thBirthday.co.uk, a Woolworths store first opened on the Edgware Road site on 21 March 1914, with an extension built in 1936. In 2000, it became one of the first pilot stores for the short-lived Woolworths General Store format, which apparently accounts for its renumbering to store number 2031 (for an explanation of Woolworths store numbers, check out this post from a couple of days ago).

Next stop was a store, at 120/122 Brentford High Street (store #829) that bears no architectural clues of ever being a Woolworths; indeed, I only knew it ever existed by speculatively Googling ‘Brentford Woolworths’ in advance of my stay in the suburb’s Premier Inn, and happening upon a postcard image of the store from the 1950s.

The ‘F W Woolworth’ fascia can be seen to the right of the picture, in the (then) modern County Parade. The store must have been fairly new when the photo was taken, given that it only opened in March 1954.

Postcard of the Brentford Woolworths store in the 1950s

Sadly, Woolworths’ presence on Brentford High Street was fairly brief, on the scale of things; 100thBirthday.co.uk reports that “the store did not prosper in the 1960s and was among the first stores to be closed on economic grounds during a review in 1974″.

Here’s a similar view today – by comparing the details of the two shots, and the street numbers, it looks like Woolworths would have been where the Vanity Lounge, Ouch Tattoo & Piercing and Law for All units are today.

Former Woolworths, Brentford (14 May 2010)

Last but not least, it wouldn’t have been possible to visit London without checking out one of the former Woolworths that’s now a Clas Ohlson. Step forward Kingston-upon-Thames (store #43), where Woolworths occupied the Market Street site from 5 May 1931 until the firm’s collapse 18 months ago.

Former Woolworths (now Clas Ohlson), Kingston-upon-Thames (16 May 2010)

Having repeatedly called for Clas Ohlson to come to Newcastle, I’m pleased to say that the actual store experience lived up to my expectations. The unit has been comprehensively refitted to remove any sense that it was ever a Woolworths – the opposite, it must be said, of Alworths in Amersham - creating an interior that is cool, modern, and attractively lit.

In terms of product range, the store is the eclectic mix of “modern hardware” that Clas Ohlson seems to have made its own – perhaps not so much a “chic Woolworths” as a hybrid of Robert Dyas, Maplin and Lakeland, with an inevitable Ikea-esque whiff of Sweden in the store’s look and feel.

I’d certainly look forward to paying another, longer visit to Clas Ohlson, though the distance to Kingston means that the recently-opened Leeds or Liverpool stores may be more likely targets. However, give the press release from yesterday which states that “Clas Ohlson plans… 17-22 new stores during the 2010/2011 financial year, of which 6-10 in the UK”, perhaps that longed-for Newcastle branch will yet be forthcoming.

Waitrose Hopwood Park (14 Feb 2010). Photograph by Mark Leaver

Weekly updates on the status of Waitrose at Hopwood Park Services on the M42 have become something of a habit lately, thanks to the regular MMSs received from Mark Leaver.

Mark’s latest pic shows the store now trading, following its opening on Friday. Don’t read too much into it being empty of customers, given that the photo was taken just before the store closed for the night at 10pm this evening!

If you need a reminder, the pics below chart the store’s quite impressive transformation over the last three weeks:

A week ago... (7 Feb 2010). Photograph by Mark Leaver

Three weeks ago (24 Jan 2010). Photograph by Mark Leaver

The John Lewis Partnership’s latest weekly update for Waitrose notes that Hopwood Park is its “first Welcome Break franchise of the year”, with others due to follow on the M11 at Birchanger Green (February) and the M3 Southbound at Fleet (March). Previously, I remarked upon the importance of Waitrose’s Welcome Break franchises “replicating as far as possible the excellent customer experience and stock availability offered by its regular shops”, and was curious, I guess, about whether the staff at those stores would still be John Lewis Partners, or whether they would be employed by Welcome Break.

Happily, I think I’ve found the answer. Back in April last year, Waitrose’s Commercial Director, Richard Hodgson, explained^{[broken link removed]} that “while the non-management team will be Partners, they will be overseen by non-Partner Welcome Break managers who have expertise in operating in this environment”.

As you would expect from John Lewis, this seems like an eminently sensible approach. Hopefully it will make sure that the Welcome Break Waitrose stores can be responsive to the distinctive environment in which they are operating, while maintaining those core Waitrose values that are at the heart of its employee-owned, partnership model.

Waitrose at Welcome Break's Hopwood Park Services (7 Feb 2010). Photograph by Mark Leaver

I’ve just received the photo above from Mark Leaver, taken on his phone last night at Welcome Break’s Hopwood Park Services on the M42. It shows the new Waitrose store looking more or less ready to be stocked, ahead of its intended opening this week.

Am I right to be quite impressed at the speed of the turnaround, given that only two weeks ago (as you will recall) the store looked like this?:

The same view two weeks ago (24 Jan 2010). Photograph by Mark Leaver

Upcoming Waitrose at Welcome Break's Hopwood Park Services (24 Jan 2010). Photograph by Mark Leaver

Many thanks to Mark Leaver for sending me an MMS with this photo of work underway on the new Waitrose store at Hopwood Park Services on the M42. Supposedly due to open in February (though there looks a fair bit of work to do yet), the store will be the sixth to open under a franchise agreement between Waitrose and the motorway service area operator Welcome Break.

As a fan of Waitrose, I do worry a little about the retailer stretching its brand too thinly – after all, there has to be some point at which Waitrose becomes so ubiquitous it’s no longer a special experience to visit one of its stores.

However, I was quite impressed when I sampled one of the first Welcome Break stores at South Mimms^{[broken link removed]} back in May, and appreciated the convenience of being able to pick up some essential items having flown back into the UK late on a Saturday evening.

Looking forward, I suspect that the success of the venture will depend upon Waitrose’s motorway stores replicating as far as possible the excellent customer experience and stock availability offered by its regular shops – something that, in my experience of visiting its equivalent Moto stores, M&S Simply Food does not always manage to achieve.

Waitrose products

A few days ago, in talking about the closure of the adjacent Oil & Vinegar store, I referred to the Eldon Square Waitrose shop as “often busy, though rarely thronged”. Scrub that – visiting during the afternoon on Saturday just gone, the store was very, very thronged indeed.

My hunch is that the snowy, icy weather may well have encouraged shoppers to abandon their cars, and instead stock up with supplies by bus, by Metro or on foot. That’s certainly what we did, walking into Newcastle city centre rather than trying to go somewhere further afield by car. Indeed, there was a report on BBC News at the weekend suggesting that convenience stores and local supermarkets were among the few retailers doing well during the ‘big freeze’, and Tim Danaher of Retail Week makes similar observations in his own blog today.

When a supermarket is very busy, there’s always potential for the customer to have a very poor and stressful shopping experience. I was pleased, however, to see Waitrose doing all the right things. First, all thirteen tills were open – which is always a good start. Even then, the queue stretched all the way from the front of the store to the back, with maybe 25 people ahead of us. Consequently, a staff member went along the queue, apologising for the wait and handing out Celebrations – a small gesture, but a thoughtful and welcome one. As it happened, the eventual length of wait – at less than 5 minutes – was no worse than I quite often experience in some of the larger supermarkets.

Still, it’s always a pleasure to see top customer service, and it’s easy to see why the John Lewis Partnership has built a reputation for being so good at it.

The empty Oil & Vinegar store this evening (6 Jan 2010)

After work, I trudged through the snow to the delightful Eldon Square Waitrose this evening, though not before giving the store a call to check that it was opening its normal hours. It was, though quite a few shops en route had signs in their windows announcing that they had shut up earlier than usual (a similar picture to elsewhere in the UK, according to Retail Week), including Waterstone’s at the Monument which was citing “staff shortages” due to the weather. The service in Waitrose was, as always, friendly and efficient, alleviating what might otherwise be the stress of negotiating a busy supermarket.

After my Waitrose food shop, I was sad – but not entirely surprised – to notice that the Oil & Vinegar store next door in St George’s Way appears to have closed down. The shutters were down, and the unit looks to have been stripped of both stock and fixtures. I’m not sure how long it’s been gone, but the store was certainly still open when I walked by before Christmas, and is still listed (for now, at least) on the Oil & Vinegar website (below). [Update, 8 Jan 2010: Not sure if it's my influence, but the Newcastle page has now been removed.]

Page for the Newcastle store on the Oil & Vinegar website

It’s a disappointing end for a store that only opened at the end of 2008, and was featured, almost exactly a year ago, as Retail Week’s ‘Store of the Week’. It was, as John Ryan’s review suggests, a really appealing shop, with a rich and interesting instore environment.

However, the problem signs were probably there from the beginning. Regularly walking past on my way to the bus station, it’s fair to say that I’d never seen more a couple of customers in there at any one time – and often there looked to be no-one in the shop at all. Equally, the recent shrinking of the store – moving forward the back wall to reduce its size by about half – started to ring my alarm bells.

So what went wrong? To some extent, I’d suggest that Oil & Vinegar is the kind of shop where people go in, look at the lovely stuff on offer, and leave without buying anything. Certainly, it’s more of a giftware retailer than a place to buy things for yourself, reflected in the Netherlands-based company’s description of itself as a “culinary gift shop”.

On the other hand, Eldon Square’s previous Oil & Vinegar store – a franchise rather than a company-run shop – always seemed to do well. It lasted from 2003 to 2007, and reportedly closed due to supply chain issues, not because of any trading difficulties. (When it shut, I remember there being a notice in the window that suggested it was not the franchisees’ own decision to close down.)

The key difference between the two incarnations, I would argue, is location. The original Oil & Vinegar had a pretty good spot in Earls Way (where Geoff Steven & Son Opticians is now situated), close to the side entrances of both Marks & Spencer and John Lewis, and therefore with plenty of middle-class shoppers passing to and fro. The store, though small, benefited from being wide and shallow, therefore having a much more prominent frontage on the mall than might be expected, given its size.

In contrast, it’s fair to suggest that St George’s Way – the location of the current store - has struggled a little since it opened in February 2008. Two years on, four of the 16 units remain empty, with Argos and Waitrose (both often busy, though rarely thronged) the only major footfall drivers. (Though John Lewis and Boots both have entrances onto St George’s Way, they lead into the lower ground floor levels of those stores; instead, the entrances on the main shopping level above tend to be much more frequently used.)

Most importantly, I think Oil & Vinegar’s particular location within the mall has been problematic – next door to Waitrose but barely visible from its entrance; adjacent to two empty units; only passed by shoppers if they are going to and from the Eldon Square bus station; and deep and narrow in form (so with a limited frontage), rather than shallow and wide. Instead, the layout of St George’s Way and, particularly, the orientation of its escalators seems to makes the opposite stretch, from Waitrose to Old Eldon Square, flow as a busier and more obvious route.

Looking to the future, the Oil & Vinegar website indicates that there are still opportunities to open franchise stores in the UK ^{[broken link removed]}, stating that “following a country re-structure and development strategy Oil & Vinegar UK are looking to grow the UK & Ireland with 8 [stores] in 2009 and 10 in 2010″. If this is so, perhaps we will yet see Newcastle welcome its third – and hopefully lucky – incarnation of an Oil & Vinegar shop.

M&S store

The news that the current boss of Morrisons, Marc Bolland, is to become the new Chief Executive of Marks & Spencer brings to an end months of speculation in the retail industry about who would – and should – succeed Sir Stuart Rose. Though Bolland’s name had been mentioned as a possible candidate, the announcement comes as something of a surprise, with retail commentators suggesting of late that an internal promotion was more likely.

While the focus of news coverage is inevitably on what this appointment will mean for M&S, the question of what it means for Morrisons is equally significant, if not more so. When Bolland arrived at Morrisons in September 2006, the business was a mess, suffering from a severe case of indigestion after swallowing up its much bigger rival Safeway in March 2004. Though Sir Ken Morrison was undoubtedly a superb grocer, his team proved ill-equipped for the scale of the integration task that faced them, with the business posting its first ever loss - of £313m – for the 12 months to the end of January 2006.

Morrisons store at Redcar

Since Bolland arrived just over three years ago, the company has been transformed from something of a laughing stock into a darling of the retail industry and the city. The old garish black and yellow logo has been overhauled, store environments and ranges have been improved, and canny advertising has pushed the distinctive ‘Market Street’ concept as underpinning Morrisons’ reputation for both freshness and value.

In contrast, when Morrisons first took over Safeway, there was some snootiness about the predominantly northern retailer venturing into the south and Scotland, and a sense – not entirely unreasonable at the time – that Morrisons didn’t really understand the very different shopping habits of the Safeway customers that it had inherited.

In a sign of how perceptions of Morrisons have changed since then, it no longer stretches credulity to imagine the recent stars of the retailer’s adverts – such as Alan Hansen, Lulu, Nick Hancock or Richard Hammond – actually shopping at their local Morrisons (more than can be said for the shortlived Sharon Osbourne Asda ads…)

Given the challenges he inherited and overcame at Morrisons, Bolland seems like a good choice for the high-profile role of M&S CEO, where there is still work to be done in buoying food sales and sorting out the most tired outposts of the store estate that have so far missed out on refurbishment.

Morrisons store at Seaburn, Sunderland

In turn, the Morrisons job also offers notable challenges to whoever replaces Bolland. To date, Morrisons has had little or no presence in some areas of the market in which its main competitors – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, even Waitrose – have built up significant strength, such as homewares, online shopping, clothing and convenience stores. Compared to Tesco and Sainsbury’s, for example, Morrisons’ store format is relatively inflexible, with even the shops acquired from Safeway often struggling to offer as satisfying an instore environment – particularly around ‘Market Street’ – as the generally larger, purpose-built Morrisons stores.

None of this has mattered much while Morrisons’ sales have been buoyant, and market share has been growing. However, should the retailer’s growth stutter, Bolland’s successor will have to address whether Morrison’s existing store formats, and clear but relatively narrow focus on being “the food specialist for everyone”, are really the most effective way forward in a highly competitive market.

Waitrose fascia

In recent weeks, hardly a day has gone by without some good news involving Waitrose – if it isn’t stellar sales figures, it’s been news about stocking 100% British own-brand dairy products, snapping up Duchy Originals, selling its products in Boots, expanding its presence in motorway service areas, or planning to ramp up its move into convenience.

Meanwhile, the retailer continues to grow its store portfolio at a rapid rate – now up to 215 shops, including new stores in Winchester, Colchester and Weston-super-Mare within the last six weeks alone.

By and large, the recent Waitrose story has therefore been one of growth and success, with the retailer – and, indeed, the John Lewis Partnership as a whole – very much in the habit of opening stores, rather than closing them.

The Gates Shopping Centre in Durham

Against this backdrop, I’ve always been rather curious about quite what went wrong with Waitrose’s Durham branch, in The Gates shopping centre. A former Safeway store, the 18,000 sq ft branch was acquired following Safeway’s takeover by Morrisons; though considered too small at the time for conversion to the Morrisons format, it was not one of the 53 or so overlapping stores that the Competition Commission had required Morrisons to divest. Rather, the assumption was that it was a location that Waitrose actively wanted.

The Durham store opened as Waitrose, to much fanfare, in November 2005 – not surprising, given that it was the retailer’s first presence in North East England, and at the time its most northerly store in the UK. Barely two years later, however, in January 2008, the store’s closure was announced after it had continually “traded at a loss”.

Echoing Waitrose’s closure of another former Morrisons acquisition, in Southport, in 2006 – just two years after it had opened – the announcement demonstrated how the retailer was capable of decisive action in those rare situations where a store was unsuccessful. However, Waitrose’s thriving store in Hexham – another former Safeway, bought from Morrisons and opened in November 2006 – showed that there was nothing stopping the retailer from making a go of it in the North East.

Waitrose Durham finally closed its doors in August last year, designed to coincide with the opening of a new (but much smaller) store in the Eldon Square shopping centre, in nearby Newcastle. More recently, in May this year, a third North East Waitrose opened in Ponteland, taking the place of the village’s Somerfield (itself a former Safeway). For a Waitrose fan like me, the retailer’s shift northwards is undoubtedly welcome; after all, prior to 2004 there was no Waitrose store more northerly than Newark.

Embarrassingly, until a few weeks ago, I had never paid a proper, sightseeing visit to Durham. So I determined to set out, curious to take a look at the former Waitrose site and to see what had become of it. That sums me up, you see – most people visit Durham to take in the wonderful cathedral; my first stop was a shut-up supermarket.

Wandering from the bus station along North Road and into the The Gates shopping centre, my initial reaction was one of slight bemusement. To me, this end of town felt very much like a secondary pitch, with The Gates’ roster of tenants – Poundland, The X Catalogue Store, Yorkshire Trading Co. – as well as those in nearby streets, not appearing to be the most natural bedfellows for a Waitrose.

Former Waitrose store, Durham (September 2009)

On a Friday towards noon, The Gates was also eerily quiet – so much so that I was able to overtly take a photo of the old Waitrose store (above) without anyone noticing. It was a rather sad sight, really - the store’s frontage was partly obscured by a deserted carousel and stacks of plastic crates (presumably belonging to the adjacent Yorkshire Trading Co.), but no amount of hiding could disguise the fact that this was a very large and very empty unit.

Durham's Prince Bishops shopping centre

My initial reaction was reinforced once I’d crossed over the river, taking the Millburngate Bridge towards Durham’s Market Place and the newer Prince Bishops shopping centre. Where The Gates felt peripheral, the Market Place area – buoyed by the presence of big names such as Bhs, Next, Marks and Spencer and Topshop, as well as lots of street entertainment – felt very much like the heart of the city centre. The area was buzzing and full of people, including plenty of students and visitors.

Durham Market Place

Tellingly, I noted that a Tesco Metro had opened up in the city’s former Woolworths store. You might well wonder, as I did, why Tesco hadn’t simply taken over the Waitrose site instead – essentially, I suspect that it’s because the old Woolworths site is a much busier and more attractive location than that on the other side of the river. Ironically, the old Woolies would probably have been a really good place for a Waitrose too.

Framwellgate Bridge, linking The Gates (behind) to Silver Street and the Market Place

Overall, following my visit to Durham, it seemed pretty clear to me why the Waitrose store had not been the hoped-for success – in short, because of where it was. Situated among the wrong types of shops, on the wrong side of the river, at the wrong end of town, away from the tourist and student hotspots, everything about the location in The Gates just felt wrong. I kept thinking to myself, did Waitrose actually visit this site before signing up for it?

In the right place, I think a Waitrose in Durham could have been successful; after all, other newer stores in the north of England and beyond, such as the ones in Sheffield and Edinburgh, appear to do very well with students and locals alike. As it is, Waitrose’s abortive dalliance with Durham is probably best viewed as a rare, but interesting, blip in the retailer’s recent success story.

Closing down sale at Woolworths

There have been a few more announcements of new occupants for old Woolworths stores over the last couple of weeks:

• Alnwick: M&Co - full story
• Crouch End: Waitrose – full story^{[broken link removed]}
• Cupar: Pound-Mart (Glasgow-based discount retailer – you can see a photograph of their flagship store here) – full story
• Derby: TJ Hughes – full story
• Kenilworth: WHSmith – full story
• Spalding: The 90p Store (not to be confused with 99p Stores or Poundland…) – full story
• Walsall: TJ Hughes – full story
• Wood Green: New Look – full story.

Meanwhile, the Waltham Forest Guardian wins the prize for biggest Woolworths-related non-story of the week – “Loughton High Road branch of Woolworths not bought by Argos”. That’s good to know…

What’s opened (or opening) up in your local Woolies? Or is the store still empty? Post a comment below and let us know.