Sainsbury's - New signage for price(?)
8 October 2018
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Our focus now turns to Sainsbury's and their declining store standards and what that means for their customers, their stores and also, Christmas 2018.
The fuller pieces will follow this week, however Sainsbury's are not alone in displaying poor store standards, far from it. There are issues across the board and inconsistency is a byword for retail as we know.
However what surprises people is the acceleration of decline from a lofty position of solid, well run stores with good presentation and availability to stores that are worsening and are now well within standards experienced in the wider market.
That makes them worse in my book, given the decline. It has all been self inflicted of course and the trick of any restructure or internal change is to ensure that the customer doesn't see any negative impact to their shopping trip.
A tough ask; it is never easy to balance all this and deliver growing profits in a depressed market post discount with weaker margins for all.
The management restructure has been difficult but the behaviours are not embedded in the new recruits or those stepping up from a standard supervisory position to a management role that may encompass a number of departments.
Thus experience has been lost and what was 'unacceptable' in terms of presentation, fill levels, work quality, service, standards are quickly becoming lost and the water is being muddied. Thus the unacceptable becomes acceptable and the chain must rally against this otherwise it affects a generation of traders and shop keepers.
For Sainsbury's; the issues are not just skin deep and when you delve in to the stores themselves, there are a number of things that concern me. More to come on the wider look at the chain in the coming week.
In terms of the main message; Sainsbury's never used to push price on ends and their value simplification work focused on eliminating multibuys and adopting simpler pricing.
They were ahead of the curve on simpler pricing but the prices have not dropped enough in recent months and years to justify the decline in standards unfortunately. Plus it is difficult to purvey yourselves as a quality retailer of food with some of the standards that have been witnessed.
As ever; the market may be broadly similar in areas; but voluntarily giving up a position of strength (intentionally or otherwise) around store presentation is folly. Especially when you consider that whilst prices have been flattened, there is still work to do on the price gap versus the mainstream rivals.
One store is too many for this to occur; it's often the same on Crisps to be honest. It's a practice that may be well intentioned but needs stopping, asap.
The cases are not shelf ready and the presentation is abysmal for customers. Who is risking paper cuts to get a pack of Crisps out of that box?
The management walk around doesn't appear to happen in a number of stores, I thinking of developing a service that would offer it as so many stores don't appear to bother with one any longer.
The longer it goes unchecked, the quicker it becomes behaviour and acceptable, even when the corporate standard is not this (I am pretty sure)... Once this is allowed, broken signage is left, people stop 'seeing' the issues and then it spreads like an epidemic, gap scanning routines go - all under a cover of hours or otherwise.
Not great.
In terms of price, Sainsbury's are joining Morrisons (price crunch / way down) but also Asda (rolled back, staying back) with this new signage to highlight their prices remaining low. Equally Tesco have been on the front foot with price throughout the year too.
A bold strategy in fresh particularly given the potential for inflationary pressure. However they are flagging that their price cuts that occurred earlier this year are now in situ and remaining that way seemingly.
However the signage does have more than a hint of a former Asda campaign......
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From the Grocery Insight newsletter archive, first sent to subscribers on 8 October 2018. Steve now writes at read.groceryinsight.com. See also the blog archive and briefings.