SPAR, the UK’s biggest group of independent neighbourhood stores, has unveiled a buoyant Q1 Quarterly Sales Update with increases in the three months to end-July 2010 of 3.1% and significant growth across its fresh food, wine and own-brand ranges.
Trading across SPAR UK’s 2,583 stores has benefited from the positive effects of shoppers visiting their local store more frequently during continued tough times. By shopping at their local SPAR store, customers know that they can find real value, avoid using the car, only buy what they need and avoid wasting food.
SPAR’s sales uplift has come from its approach of ensuring every store is tailor-made for the community it serves during the downturn: tailoring its product range and services to respond to the needs of customers at a local, store-by-store level
Jerry Marwood, SPAR UK Managing Director commented:
“SPAR stores are succeeding because each of them is tailor-made for the community it serves as retailers in the SPAR group are positively encouraged to be innovative in the range of products and services they offer.
“That rejection of a one-size-fits-all approach to retail means that our stores – all independently owned and managed – have been quicker to respond to what customers are asking for from us and have been free to cater to different and changing customer needs in their local communities.”
SPAR has delivered value to its customers across the store network with a substantial increase in promotions - offering a range of half price and buy-one-get-one free offers, as well as meal deals. Sales of promoted items have increased 28.8% year-on-year with strong performance on fresh food promotions (up 36.3%) and grocery (up 28.1%) - a sign that consumers are responding well to SPAR reducing the cost of their shopping baskets.
From a category perspective, the sales growth reflects the fact that SPAR has become the “extended” larder on the corner of its customer’s streets and has benefitted from several major initiatives introduced across the estate to ensure that it offers a more rounded range of products.
• SPAR has continued to roll-out its own brand range of products, sales of which grew 4.4% in the three months to end-July 2010 compared to sales the previous year. The range will continue to grow and develop throughout 2010.
• Improving the group’s fresh food offering and moving beyond grocery top-up shopping. SPAR has seen substantial rise in sales of fresh food and produce, including a 3.9% increase in fresh food overall (with sales of fresh vegetables up 10.4%, fresh fruit up 20.0% and fresh meat and poultry up 5.0% overall). This points to the continued successful strategy of becoming a credible destination for customers to be able to buy everything they need for their evening meal.
• The re-development of SPAR’s wine portfolio has also yielded results as sales in the category have continued to grow. Sales of wine during Q1 2010 were up 3.5% year-on-year, in particular spurred by a 151% rise in sales of South African wines during the World Cup and a successful wine festival across the 2,100 licensed SPAR stores.
Looking forward, Marwood cited continued store and service innovations as vital to maintaining SPAR’s success through 2010 and into 2011.
“On a category basis, we’ve seen strong performances across our fresh food and our wine in particular. This suggests that every week we are now seen by our 15 million customers as delivering the products they need to make a home-cooked meal, to pick up food on the go or to buy some quality wine to go with the Sunday lunch.
“We will continue to focus on enhancing this and on encouraging our retailers to find more product lines with genuine local provenance, as well as improving our fresh food offering.
“With rising petrol prices and consumers looking to manage their finances on a daily basis we have seen our local relationships with our customers grow and become much more meaningful during tough times. We know people are reassured by familiarity, good old-fashioned interaction and the social connections they get from stores that are owned and managed by people who make a contribution to the local community.”
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