British supermarket Sainsbury’s is carrying out trials at six of its supermarkets in response to new and emerging shopping trends.
The trials include a radically different supermarket layout and an increased range of checkout options, which are designed to make the stores quicker and easier to shop and to offer customers more choice in-store.
According to the supermarket, the new ‘mission-based’ store layout includes a greater focus on popular own-label clothing and homeware, and new till formats and innovative technology to enable quicker checkout.
As the majority of consumers are increasingly doing smaller shops more often, Sainsbury’s is trialling how it can cater to specific shopping missions in its supermarkets, including a new ‘Food to Go’ section at the front of the store next to the checkouts. The fresh bakery products have also moved to the new section to make it more convenient for shoppers wanting to buy fresh products quickly.
Sainsbury’s is also dedicating more space in these stores to its Tu clothing range, kitchen and homeware items. Clothing, homeware, mobile phones and tablets are now situated along the walls of the store with the amount of space being given to non-food categories in the six trial stores increasing by around 30 per cent.
Sainsbury’s is piloting two new types of checkout in the trial stores - giving customers four different checkout options to choose from. As well as manned checkouts and self checkouts used for basket shops, Sainsbury’s is offering a larger self checkout option for people with small trollies.
Shoppers can also checkout via the innovative new SmartShop app in two of the stores. SmartShop enables customers to scan in their shopping lists at home and while in-store, the app displays a map locating the items around the store and they can then pay using a mobile.
The six stores involved in the trial are Alperton, London; Devizes, Wiltshire; Emersons Green, Bristol; Harpenden, Hertfordshire; Morecambe, Lancashire and Tamworth in Staffordshire.
Speaking in the new layout, Mike Coupe, chief executive officer at Sainsbury’s, said, “We need to make our supermarkets more convenient for people who visit often to do a smaller shop. This trial is about seeing how far we can go in catering for every shopping mission, whether someone wants to pop in quickly to buy a sandwich for lunch, or whether they have more time and want inspiration for the home, or advice on tech and gadgets."
He continued," No matter what customers are buying, we know that everyone wants to check out as quickly as possible and giving customers more checkout options to suit them is key to the trial. The pilot stores will act as a barometer for feedback and we’re listening to what customers tell us along the way. This is very much a trial and we know that not everything will work, but certain elements are already proving very popular and we would hope to roll those out more widely where feedback is consistently positive.”
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