Londis has announced today that all customer-facing operations are to be split from those of Budgens for the first time as the fascia group aims to revitalise its focus on local retailers across the UK. Headed up by former Retail Director John Pattison, the new Londis division will have far greater autonomous control over how the group is run and managed across, including in areas such as ranging, promotions, HR, marketing and IT support.
From today (2nd February), Londis now has its own trading teams and is rigidly enforcing new joining and membership criteria. Pattison told SLR: “The move follows a recent restructuring after a strategic review and is hugely significant for the Londis brand as all of our customer-facing operations will now be handled by a Londis-specific team.”
The move is set to revitalise the group’s focus on selecting and working with retailers that can help develop the Londis brand in future; and Pattison says this will inevitably lead to a follow in membership numbers as he focuses on a quality over quantity strategy.
“We started the year with 1,712 stores and is our intention to add another 100 stores in 2015,” he said. “Thanks to our commitment to our new membership criteria we do however expect the net number of stores to fall by the end of the year but this approach will improve our business and that of our retailers.” The group has already “managed the exit” of 150 or so stores over the last year.
Launched late last year, the new criteria involves Londis retailers spending over £7,500 a week of which less than 40% is tobacco and more than 10% is fresh. Pattison says the result was a 16% increase in the number of stores joining Londis.
The year ahead will be a busy one for the fascia with the planned launch of a new Londis-specific price file in April and an upweighted commitment to forecourts with the launch of a dedicated new forecourt division led by John Ridgley and supported by a field sales team of six.
“The new pricing file means we can develop or own pricing strategy specifically for the convenience store which is a major step forward,” said Pattison. “And forecourts will be a focus for us moving forward and that’s particularly true in Scotland where we currently have around 35.”
2015 will also see an expansion of Londis’s exclusive SmartBuy own label range. Launched last August with a collection of 32 products, Londis intends to grow the range to over 100 by year end, including at least seven new fresh produce lines.
This activity will be backed up a radio campaign across the country and product giveaways in Sunday national newspapers.
Last year saw the group spend over £1.2m in core investment in stores, mostly as shared investments with independent retailers. Pattison envisages that figure almost doubling to £2.3m this year including another 100 or so refits.
