One Stop picked a fight with rival convenience chain McColl’s in a recent in-store marketing campaign aiming to highlight its value proposition.

Promotional material sent to One Stop stores attacked McColl’s higher pricing on products such as Heinz Baked Beans, own brand semi-skimmed milk, sugar and Warburtons white bread.

Commenting on the campaign, retail expert David Gilroy told Better Retailing: “One Stop was saying price on sugar, for example, was 70p compared with £1.20 in McColl’s, and this was present in several stores.

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“It’s a strange benchmark because the consumer doesn’t care about how much products in McColl’s are. It would have been interesting if the campaign was benchmarking against Co-op
or Sainsbury’s.

“One Stop’s offers are as good as, if not better than, Sainsbury’s. Strategically I couldn’t tell what the objective was.”

Both convenience chains run similar smaller format stores in neighborhood locations.

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One Stop has 900 stores, while McColls operates more than 1,500 sites. McColl’s is reported to have made attempts at acquiring the Tesco-owned One Stop chain in 2017.

A One Stop franchisee, who asked not to be named, said the campaign was being run in company-owned sites only.

One Stop did not comment when asked about the marketing campaign by Better Retailing.

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