nickshanagher

Rumours of a tie-up between Palmer & Harvey and Costcutter had been circulating in the industry for more than a year and the logic of the alliance is explained in a short marketing booklet. Together they have set up a not-for-profit Buyco to negotiate the best possible terms. The duo are promising existing customers even better prices than ever before. Will this happen? There is a good chance if the new retail arm can organise its disciplines and demonstrate that it is creating new purchase opportunities for suppliers. What independent retailers have to be realistic about is that Tesco has a six per cent margin advantage because it controls around a third of the market. Simply lumping all their invoices together does not create the value, working collaboratively to meet shopper needs does. P&H has handed over all its symbol group convenience operations to Costcutter as part of this deal. Thus its Mace and SuperShop members will be managed by the team at Costcutter. P...

 A very good friend of mine told me a great story over the Easter weekend. She had been invited to a house sale, where a family were leaving the UK and wanted to flog off the contents of their home. The wife, an American, turned out to be a formidable saleswoman. The expected bargains were not on display and my friend felt obligated to buy a few things, quickly using her smartphone to check prices. The classic moment came when the saleswoman asked my friend how much money she had left in her purse. Two fifty pence coins was the reply. I’ll have those said the American. Everything she did not sell was put on a van and sent to a charity shop. My friend told me that only an American could possibly have achieved this house sale: having an inflated view of the value of her own possessions and the confidence to sell it to friends of friends. Which had me thinking about the value of scripted behaviour and the confidence that makes selling successful. Is this something on disp...

In today's FT John Gapper reviews the setbacks to David Cameron's attempts to curb binge drinking and Michael Bloomberg's attempts to curb obesity, with his ban on large servings of soft drinks being overturned by the courts. Mr Gapper argues that governments should adopt the lightest measures possible to address such social ills and draws the comparison with tobacco, where rumours are swirling that Mr Cameron may be planning to introduce plain packaging. Convenience stores are in the uncomfortable position of selling all three products, mostly responsibly. They account for a big proportion of sales and are important profit centres. Society (and politicians) also fail to see the great benefit of a responsible local supply chain. For c-stores in poorer communities the threat of political action is much greater and Mr Gapper addresses this. What he does not address is where poor shoppers will go to buy their alcohol, sugary drinks and tobacco when the politicians impos...

There are two schools of thought about magazines and newspaper sales in the 21 st century and how they fit with a local convenience store. The one that is winning appears to be to stock a limited range of top sellers and get on with the day job. For a great many independent retailers, this makes good business sense. But in the rush to convenience, does this mean some retailers are missing a brilliant business opportunity? The answer is yes, according to Colin Mullins. Mr Mullins, who today heads the retail consultancy Fore, has a track record of building profitability for retailers through news sales. His current clients include Tesco, M&S, Asda, Spar and Nisa. He set up Fore in 2007 and sold to Menzies Distribution last year. One of the tasks he has been given is to breathe life into Superleague, the news sales club that Menzies set up in 1999 to get a piece of the “pay for display” action pioneered by WHSmith in its high street and travel outlets. The launch of Su...

The highlight of my month was a half hour one on one interview with Seth Godin, author, entrepreneur and teacher, prior to his London Icarus show. I will post more stuff from my Retail Newsagent and Better Wholesaling interviews shortly. However, at the end of my interview Godin commented on my fountain pen and said that it was one thing he had never mastered. I realised later that he was complimenting me by finding something remarkable about me. No-one else had taken notes with a Lamy pen in the recent past. I replied that it was a great pen but I was having trouble with the nib, which was coming loose. In fact, ever since I was first given the pen 10 years ago I had being having trouble with the nib. Can you not get a replacement, he asked. I don't know, I said. I looked at the pen and I thought that I had never considered the idea that I could replace the nib. While I regularly bought refill cartridges, I had never thought there were other parts I could change. So, a wee...

Hugh Thomson's The Green Road Into The Trees is a remarkable book about his journey across England from Dorset to Norfolk. Tracing loosely an ancient road, The Ickneild Way, Thomson uncovers the hidden local histories of England and the changes to the way we live. He celebrates life. He writes about highs and lows, geographical and human. About law making and lawlessness. For retailers seeking to be at the heart of their communities this is a manual on what belonging is about. The rural memory, he notes, is both very short and very long. This following observation within a conversation with countryman David Hughes in Oxfordshire is typical of the quality of Thomson's thought and writing. "Over his cup of tea and morning cigarello, David talks about the changes he has seen in the countryside. He think it's too easy to make the usual assumptions about how 'it's all commuters now and the heart has gone out of the villages'. That needs to be qualified ...

 You get the impression from Bill Grimsey, the former boss of Wickes, Iceland and Focus DIY, that all it takes for success is some vision and some guts. He may be right. His book, Sold Out , aims to propose ways to save the high street and by extension independent retailing. What makes his book stand out, however, is not his pitch but the detail of his career in retail. For independent c-store operators there is much to think about. Grimsey provides a useful overview of how the supermarkets took over in the 1960s as more and more households bought fridges and the weekly shop became possible. The next step in giving supermarkets an edge was widespread car ownership. Grimsey describes the success of Tesco’s price cuts in 1977. He was personally involved in the next step forward, helping to deliver improvements in customer service in the late 1980s. On page 150 he provides a very useful four point summary of how to create a good impression with shoppers. Moving forward to...