Last week, one of five stores owned and run by Tom Dant of Gill Marsh Forecourts in and around the town of Alford in Lincolnshire reopened - after taking the bold move of switching supplier from Spar to Morrisons Daily.
Located in the town centre and also running an instore Post Office, Tom took to social media to celebrate the news of the end of a week-long refit, and Convenience Store spoke with him to get the lowdown on how the process went - and why it happened.
Tom says the change came about after a shuffle of other stores in and nearby had altered over the years. He takes up the story: “We reopened last Thursday (19 February). When we took the store over six years ago, there was a Co-op in the town and a Today’s there too, and there was also an unbranded Nisa.
“Then, basically after Covid, we had a Go Local open - and then directly around the corner there was a McColl’s which shut and then turned into a Premier, and that took most of our trade away, to be honest.”
“With the impact of the new competition, business gradually eroded more and more.”
The impact of the shifts, Tom says, was pretty immediate, and he knew his Spar in the town centre needed to change to progress. “You can try lots of things. We tried changing the hours, the structure. We did home deliveries, which we still do, but we moved them to one of our biggest stores. But with the impact of the new competition, business gradually eroded more and more.
“We have five locations - three forecourt and two convenience stores. We’ve been with Spar for a long, long time - since before AF Blakemore were involved. The rest of our stores are all still Spar, but for us, just for this location and with this customer base, we changed.”
Alford is a town of about four and a half thousand people, and Gill Marsh has a forecourt at the top of the hill on the main road, and another on the way out the other side of town. “So people’s perception was our two Spar forecourts, which were traditionally more premium priced than high street locations,” Tom said.
This realisation that people’s price perception of his town Spar store might well have contributed to the drop in sales, he believes. But the change to the Morrisons Daily format really helped, he believes. “That was the biggest thing we were battling with. People’s perception of whether something’s expensive or not, certainly from our experience, is that because it’s Morrisons above the door - whether it’s pricemarked or not - their perception of value is that it’s going to be cheaper when in reality, it probably isn’t.”
Changes to the stock in the store - which Tom says he had previously tried tweaking - also helped. “We put a bit more range in, but the biggest change for the store was that we put the Morrison food to go solution in.
“People make a beeline for us now, and especially to the bakery.”
“We’d tried food to go in the store before and it didn’t really work. But for us, the biggest driver of the growth is the Morrisons brand and how strong it is. I didn’t really even realise, but people make a beeline for us now, and especially to the bakery. We keep selling out of doughnuts, things like that. It’s things that we’ve tried over the years, but you just couldn’t sell them.
“I was just comparing Bisto, for example, and the RRP was actually 10p dearer than our Spar RRP. But again, it’s that psychology that it’s a supermarket brand. The biggest increases we’re seeing is in fresh. Don’t get me wrong, Spar’s fresh offering was really good. But what it lacked for us was the premium tier.”
The premises itself, Tom says, didn’t need much work, enabling the Morrisons team to act fast. “In terms of the refit, we closed on the Sunday and we opened on the Thursday. The ambient side of the store was done by Tuesday lunchtime and then the chilled came in on the Wednesday and we opened on Thursday.
“The store wasn’t in a bad state of repair as we refitted it just out of Covid just over five years ago. Morrisons wanted us to put another fridge in because they wanted more chilled, which I was unsure about. We’d already got quite a bit of chilled. But we did it and thought, well, we’d go with it.
“It wouldn’t have been as good as it has been if we hadn’t have put that extra fresh in, I think. Morrisons put some more shelves in so that we could get a little bit more range in, but they focus on less household and the slow-moving lines and then more crisps, multipacks, bigger packs, their Best brand sharing crisps and things like that - really preimmunising things.”
Now, the new Morrisons Daily is earning plaudits from locals, who are returning in their droves, Tom says. “The customer feedback’s been really, really good. Lots of people are raving it about in the town because there’s very little choice. I mean, we’re only 1,200 sq.ft., so we’re not massive.
“But the town has a Lincolnshire Co-op, which is about 45,000 sq.ft., which was refitted at some point last year. So it’s in reasonable state of repair, but it’s very expensive. Now we can sell milk at the same price as Morrisons supermarkets, which are price-matched to Aldi. We’ve done some deep, deep cut deals on the essentials, whereas our local Co-op is nearly £2 for a bottle of milk, so it’s a big difference.
“We’ve seen £50 and £60 baskets, which would be unheard of, and it’s because of the fresh.”
“It brings a different type of customer - it brings bigger basket customers. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen £50 and £60 baskets, which would be unheard of, and it’s because of the fresh.”
But did Tom consider any other suppliers before opting for Morrisons? Well, he was restricted, he says. “When I was considering what to do, I knew we didn’t want one of the Booker symbols, to be honest, because of Premier nearby. We didn’t want any of the other symbols that are supplied by Co-op because we’d have the same products as them.
“With the Todays store, all their chilled comes through Nisa, so it’s all Co-op chilled too. So in terms of the differentiation in the town our choice was quite limited. We talked to One Stop too.”
The customers were front and centre of Tom’s mind when he was considering the change, he adds. “Of course, our other stores are quite close, and everyone drives. By having a different symbol at those other stores actually gives the customer the choice as to whether they want the Spar offer or Morrisons. Most do both - they go to Morrissons for the petrol then come to us.”
In addition, being a forecourt operator, Tom says he can utilise the strengths of each store format to boost the other. “We’ve got Henderson’s as our Epos provider, so we want to get a fuel coupon for when people spend extra in the shop, which we already do in our forecourts. If they spend 30 quid in the shop, they get a 5p per litre coupon which we set so it doesn’t actually activate till the next day so they couldn’t use it there and then - they have to come back.
“They’ve got to use it within seven days so we know that we’re going to get that customer back, and more than likely then they spend more. So we want to then tie it in so that they can collect their voucher here and then get the fuel at one of our fuel sites.”
In summary, Tom says he has no plans to convert anyof his other Spar stores, and made the decision from a business perspective, which most retailers will appreciate: “This is nothing against Spar - I still use them - it was just for this location.
“At the end of the day, we’re in business to make money and survive and you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”
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