Breaking all my data driven rules with this post. We're doing testing and check visits to grocery stores ahead of the data capture. That data will tell us which grocer is winning Christmas. Indeed, which grocer is relatively more attractive across five key customer stories too. Without seeing the end data, which is crowd generated across a proper sample rather than just us doing testing obviously, and so I'm at risk of applying my cognative bias here, where Uncrowd data has no bias, I believe I can say with little risk of proving to be wrong later... One grocer that definitely isn't winning Christmas this year... is Waitrose & Partners. That visit just now was to a world of bland. Where Waitrose's traditional confident higher quality is almost apologised for, where value comes through but in a dull and almost desperate way. There's no fun in it. No discovery. The Waitrose confidence is entirely absent. Confidence to curate, inspire, teach, feed and delight. A word of positivity for staff: I saw a team of committed, friendly, helpful professionals today. They're doing their best as JLP people always have. It's a relatively new leadership team at Waitrose of course, and JLP itself has dramatically strengthened its customer leadership, and maybe the final data will prove me wrong. Maybe this Waitrose is the grey exception to a delightfully inspirational and confidently premium wider estate? I hope so because this was awful. #retail #customerexperience #bigmouthnodatayet
Zoe Langman
9mo
I shop at Sainsburys and it's also not fun. There's some nice Christmas products, but a huge array of random store displays that don't tie together. So there's parts of the store that look like Costco, which I find really odd. It just smacks of being overly profit focussed ahead of delight, which is not a cosy christmas feeling. On the plus side the staff at Sainsburys where I shop are super nice and helpful, which is why I go there mainly. They also seem to be splitting categories a lot more lately, so i'm struggling to find things. I'm sure this is on purpose, but it's deeply unhelpful for those of us that don't want to waste valuable energy investigating where the fig marinade is this week :-) Be interesting to see your feedback on them. And also how you define winning.
Alex Hunter
9mo
I very much doubt that Waitrose will be bottom of the pack or even close. In fact, I expect it to be top-middle/middle-top. Sorry, Richard. If you're looking for fun and discovery, then you're maybe needing to move to another country this year at Christmas.
Mark Pinkerton
9mo
You should try the larger King's Cross one - which maybe the closest to Uncrowd towers. It is also terrible - they have adopted the practice of putting stock in unopened boxes on the top shelves - it feels like Costco. They are so losing out to M&S at the moment which is gutting as a long-term customer.
🔸Alex Chartres🔹
9mo
I’m sure the location of that branch, at the end of a road that’s been closed for almost 12 months, could be a factor… Have you tried the new Sainsbury’s up in Witney?
I've been having the same vibe from every Waitrose that I visited lately, good products, bad merchandising, lots of availability issues and very little innovation. The staff is always very nice and helpful but everything seems dull. I'm sure they'll be back but for now it's tough.
Grear post as always Richard. I agree. Their advertising is all over the place too. No single clear vision as to who they are and what they stand for. Losing the never knowing undersold wasn't just a lose of customer positioning... it was a lose of a strategic direction. Their value messaging lacks confidence too.
sad days
Uncrowd CEO & Founder | Expert in Experience Analytics
9moI want to be wrong. LinkedIn also wants this! As I went to post it served me this!