Nisa, Spar and One Stop are investing in more support to help their stores retain customers gained during the cost-of-living crisis, as their bosses urged retailers to “look forward”.
Last week, Nisa managing director Peter Batt, Spar retail director Ian Taylor and One Stop head of franchise John Miller discussed the challenges facing the convenience industry at the National Convenience Show in Birmingham.
Similarly to the pandemic, the bosses agreed that squeezed incomes during the cost-of-living crisis had driven more residents from local communities to their respective shop estates.
Taylor said: “Costs are going up, but the convenience sector has always been resilient and Covid-19 was an example of this. We are ahead of the market. There is a lot of doom and gloom, but there are quite a few positives. We should look forward. Inflation is going down. There are new products and innovation. We are moving positively.”
Miller added: “There are positives. Rising fuel costs mean people don’t want to use their cars, and most customers are walking to their nearest convenience store.”
Batt agreed, adding that Nisa stores had seen an increase in customers trading down to more affordable own-label products.
Each of the symbol group’s bosses highlighted how they were investing to help stores manage rising costs and encourage repeated visits from these new customers. Miller highlighted the work One Stop was doing with loyalty programmes. He said: “We want to understand customers at a deeper level. You have to understand what customers you’re serving and the demographics they’re sitting in.
“Value and loyalty are a driving force for that future. We just launched a mechanism into stores where customers can provide feedback. We’ll take all this information and analyse it. We’re also examining lessons from our 700 company-owned stores and how we can make franchise stores more efficient.”
Batt added: “Price and value are important, whether that’s through core range, wholesale cost or rebates rewarded back to retailers. Nisa is also recruiting someone to manage data insight. We want to get as much data as we can, make it simple to read and make appropriate decisions based on this.”
Taylor referenced Spar’s investment in local marketing campaigns, highlighting the value of local stores and own label to communities.
He said: “We will see light at the end of the tunnel. Retailers who invested in their stores will see the benefit from more customers shopping locally. Customers want local products and the convenience sector can give them that.”
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