Yet another Morrisons thread

[all new Phil]

http://www.retail-week.com/sectors/food ... 39.article

[scottishtv]

Wow. Sounds a bit bonkers. I can't see many of the gimmicks being useful but a lot of the pointless technology and peculiarities do appeal to my dorky side.

- ‘tunnel scanners’ on each till to speed up the checkout process, Looks like airport security. Can it really be faster than a human?
- Morrisons has ditched the ‘misty veg’ synonymous with its Fresh Format stores in favour of produce watered with small hoses in an area named ‘from the Garden’. LOL!
- The 39,000 sq ft store’s café, called The Eatery, has an ‘Argos’-style queuing system with tickets and a wood fired pizza oven. How can you make a supermarket café more miserable? Bring the worst bit of Argos to it....

Plus I'm not sure a 2% "smile discount" is going to have the crowds leaping in. On the flip side, it does look quite fun to visit.

--
EDIT: I take back some of my mocking. A look at @dresserman's twitter pictures show rear filled fridges to be a nice idea and the Costco vibe probably gives the impression of giving you a good deal. Not sure I'd want to shop there every week though. The list of things to make you smile is kinda naff.

[rdobbie]

If the posh fixtures in the new stores were meant to give off a Waitrose/M&S ambiance, it's been ruined somewhat by this new POS material.

The other point to note is that Morrisons seem to have resurrected another font (Marker Pen or similar) from the final version of the Safeway branding manual.

Morrisons now have such a ridiculous number of fonts simultaneously in play across their POS, permanent signage, advertising and own brand packaging, that they're in danger of having no consistent corporate feel at all.

[WillPS]

Yeah, Morrisons certainly feels like a confused supermarket right now. I notice they're advertising Market Street again; a term I thought was dead with the last couple of years' rebrand.

Their star promotion at the moment, which involves doing 3 £40 shops over 3 separate weeks in February to get (trumpets please) a voucher for £10 off a £40 shop and 10p off each litre of fuel, strikes me as a load of crap. Tesco seem to give me a £5 off a £40 shop voucher every other time I go; no tokens or forward planning of any sort needed. Also Asda fairly regularly give you £5 vouchers via their Price Promise thing - again on the basis of a single shop. Since I hardly ever go to Sainsbury's any more I usually get a catalina from them too.

On the subject of fuel offers - they strike me as generally rubbish. Even on a 'generous' 10p/litre, that's a discount of less than 10%.

[all new Phil]

They're panicking. They don't know if they are upmarket or downmarket, and so are trying to appeal to both audiences - which in turn alienates them both.

[Alexia]

They're panicking. They don't know if they are upmarket or downmarket, and so are trying to appeal to both audiences - which in turn alienates them both.

I think in the supermarket social chain, they're above Tesco but below Sainsbury's.

Or, to put it in Fryspeak:

Lifestyle Express
keeps the scum out of
Spar
keeps the scum out of
Lidl/Aldi
keeps the scum out of
Iceland
keeps the scum out of
Asda
keeps the scum out of
The Co-Op
keeps the scum out of
Tesco
keeps the scum out of
Morrisons
keeps the scum out of
Sainsburys
keeps the scum out of
Waitrose
keeps the scum out of
Marks & Spencer

[WillPS]

You're chatting shit, again.

With the exception of Iceland and Asda (and this recent swathe of confusion from Morrisons) none of the supermarkets would say they appeal downmarket. Certainly Aldi and Lidl's recent gains have overwhelmingly come from appealing to the middle classes.

Convenience stores and supermarkets are largely separate entities.

[Pete]

Also Waitrose is posher than M&S

[Alexia]

It wasn't me who said Morrisons are appealing downmarket, that was all new Phil.

Also up until recently, M&S didn't even stock non-own branded items, making them, in my opinion, much more snobby than Waitrose.

[wells]

Also up until recently, M&S didn't even stock non-own branded items, making them, in my opinion, much more snobby than Waitrose.

You could say the same about Aldi. Waitrose are generally in more select locations, where as you can get M&S in any town of a certain size. Marks & Spencer's food halls aren't full size supermarkets either so I imagine had a smaller range so there was less room to bring branded food in.

Also Marks & Spencer Cola for example would still be considered by most to be inferrer to Coca-Cola, so it's important to have the brands in those circumstances.

[all new Phil]

none of the supermarkets would say they appeal downmarket

Observe the image above. That is appealing downmarket. It is ghastly and cheap-looking.