Asda responds to change in customer behaviour with store refits, new retailer tie-ups and more delivery slots
The sight of row upon row of bare supermarket shelves is enough to induce pangs of anxiety in shoppers who hunted high and low for lavatory paper during lockdown earlier this year. However, the empty aisles in Asda’s Clapham Junction store are not the result of a Covid panic-buying spree, but a temporary layout that is baffling customers.
“I just came out to do a quick shop during my lunch break,” says one confused shopper. “Everything’s been moved around – it’s taking me forever.”
Last refurbished a decade ago, the superstore is starting to show its age. Pipes hang from the ceiling channelling drips into buckets as shoppers edge trolleys down a broken travelator. In the refrigerated aisles, scuffed coolers stand vacant waiting to be replaced by sleek black cabinets, while signs, indicating where items have been moved, hang from shelves like treasure hunt clues.
The store is undergoing a £4.5m refit to update its grocery space and expand its George clothing range and Home collection after robust sales growth. The Clapham Junction store – a stone’s throw from one of the country’s busiest railway stations – is one of a handful getting new takeaway food kiosks, aimed at increasing customer choice and convenience. Its facelift is part of a wider programme to improve the Asda experience. Since March, the retailer has been making stores Covid-safe and responding to changing customer behaviour in the wake of the virus.
In addition to introducing new takeaway counters, Asda is increasing tie-ups with other retailers after research found more shoppers want to complete multiple “missions” on a single trip. It plans to trial four “shop within a shop” concepts in collaboration with B&Q, which will see the DIY firm open branches in Asda stores in Dagenham and Sheffield later this year.
The supermarket chain has more than 600 outlets – mostly big-box superstores – and has continued to increase the total in recent years in contrast to investment in convenience stores and online by rivals Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons.
However, it is now testing “Asda On the Move” at petrol station forecourts in Ashby, Leamore and Primley in the Midlands owned by EG Group – the supermarket’s new co-owners. Meanwhile, more shoppers than ever are bypassing Asda’s physical stores. Its online grocery sales doubled and click-and-collect sales quadrupled during the three months to June 30 while Britain was in lockdown. It has increased online capacity by two thirds since March, to 700,000 weekly slots, and plans to reach 1m next year. With the return of the large weekly shop, Asda may be hedging its bets that the future lies in bigger multi-stop stores and more online services, but shoppers in Clapham Junction just want to be able to find their groceries again.