Metropol

james2001 wrote:

thegeek wrote:I hope they do something sympathetic to the the fascia in Walthamstow - it's in a lovely building (check out the beehive in the masonry - and while you're at it, the inviting window display)

Nothing's more inviting than open coffins! Maybe they should put some mannequin corpses in just to make it complete.

So far, in common with most branches, they've just had a hanging cloverleaf added. But check out that coffin with a picturesque vista printed on it in the window, I bet most don't have that...

Pear wrote:

scottishtv wrote:Here's the news release and the full list (PDF) of stores sold.

Some interesting stores on that list. This store, close to me, was purpose built and only opened in 2012. It's one of the larger Co-ops, not the size of a typical McColl's shop.

I thought the same. The Exeter store in particulary jumped out at me as it used to be a Somerfield Supermarket and came with that acquisition. It is a full supermarket, even sells electrical goods. What on earth McColls will do with all that space I do not know.

Similarly with the 5 Plymouth stores. Alexandra Rd is smaller format but certainly not the smallest they've got in Plymouth, whilst the other 4 are all about as large as you can get without actually being a supermarket, far too big for a McColls. All 5 locations are also very busy stores in the estate, whilst Co-Op have retained rafts of stores in residential areas that are like shoeboxes and are little more than booze, milk & fag outlets - exactly what McColls is supposed to be for.

The two Torbay stores are hardly a surprise - all of Co-Op's stores in Torbay are in out of town areas, whilst McColls have a monopoly on central area convenience stores and Tesco Metro have pretty much sewn up the larger format convenience sector in suburban areas. I lived here for 2 years before I realised Co-Op even have any stores here. It is a bit surprising though that they'll still be retaining a few stores rather than just pull out all together given what little market penetration they have - and again some are smaller than the two they'll be selling.

I don't think their excuse of "focusing on larger stores" is entirely truthful - I think for the most part they want rid of the stores that aren't making them money, most (but not all) of which are small. I have to agree though that some of these larger stores being sold to McColls and Budgens is odd though, it's a lot of space for them.

Funny that they're claiming they're focusing on larger stores seeing as they sold their superstore near me to Morrisons back in 2009 because they "didn't want bigger stores any more".

james2001 wrote:Funny that they're claiming they're focusing on larger stores seeing as they sold their superstore near me to Morrisons back in 2009 because they "didn't want bigger stores any more".

Similarly, just last year they closed a superstore in Plymouth which they acquired from Somerfield - apparently one of the largest (if not the largest) stores in the ex-Somerfield estate claiming that such a large store didn't fit in with their demographic in Plymouth of largely being a convenience store provider rather than competition to the big supermarkets which they were being by operating this store.

This is despite the fact that Co-Op seemed to deal very well with this large store in terms of ranging it and the store was just as busy as you'd expect to see in a similar-sized unit of any major supermarket, and they traded it for 7 years without any hint of an issue existing.

I think the ideal format is somewhere in size between an average Tesco Express and a smaller branch of Aldi (or a Netto if you've been to one). Too small and they'll struggle to get their range in, too large and they don't appear to have enough range and offers. There were two supermarkets in Nottingham until 18 months ago (both Co-ops inherited from the Greater Nottingham Co-op Society in the 90s), they moved to Asda and Waitrose last year and are far more successful under their ownership.

I'm not sure what McColls will do with the larger sites but there could be some subdivision on the way, or maybe in store SubWay or Costa operations?

Subdivisions may seem the way to go - the EoE Co-op has been installing Subway's in some of its stores and I'm told that it's worked quite well. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but they've also ditched having their own in-store bakery and instead get all their stuff from local bakeries instead - at first I was quite disappointed by this but the reality is a bigger range and they're probably somewhat fresher.

woah wrote:I think for the most part they want rid of the stores that aren't making them money, most (but not all) of which are small.

I agree. It feels like this is probably closer to the truth. There's a couple of very small Co-ops I expected to see on that list which aren't (Both ex-Alldays stores).

They stock quite limited Co-op ranges, but are always really busy selling booze, cigarettes, junk food and lottery tickets - definitely worth keeping.

scottishtv wrote:On my short 25 minute walk to work, I pass two ScotMid and two Co-op (Group) stores, two are only one street apart and you'll often see the Group branded lorry leave one, drive two minutes along the road and deliver to the "competitor".

As an update, the ScotMid on Lothian Road in Edinburgh has closed down following the refurbishment and rebranding of the "proper" Co-op just along the road. Competitive times!

What's the deal with the national Co-op chain having stores in areas where Scotmid, the EoE Co-op operates? There's one Co-operative in Norwich that I know of, otherwise I can't recall ever having seen one in our area - we used to have Co-operative travel stores here but the one local to me closed years ago now, with an EoE Co-op travel now inside a big co-op here.

Critique wrote:What's the deal with the national Co-op chain having stores in areas where Scotmid, the EoE Co-op operates? There's one Co-operative in Norwich that I know of, otherwise I can't recall ever having seen one in our area - we used to have Co-operative travel stores here but the one local to me closed years ago now, with an EoE Co-op travel now inside a big co-op here.

There's nothing to stop societies from competing with one another as they please. A bit of historic perspective:
All the societies bought from CWS (Wholesale Society) who acted as a union between societies, and held responsibility for creating a unified storefront and things like that.
CRS (Retail Society) was formed to introduce a Co-op presence where local societies had not. They too bought from CWS, and generally avoided opening new shops treading on other societies toes. CRS also acted as an owner of last resort for failing societies. By the 70s, loss making societies were falling in their ownership faster than they could open new sites which stood a chance of making money. Eventually they washed their hands of their constitutional responsibility to takeover failed societies, and CWS assumed that responsibility.

Bare in mind that 'the model' was still supposed to be that CWS was a wholesaler and umbrella supporting other societies including CRS.

My understanding is that by the late 90s there was quite an intense distrust between CRS and CWS (who inevitably had begun to step on eachothers toes), hence CRS dropping the CWS branding and stuff. The lines of responsibility were seriously blurred. A merger between the two was more or less forced upon them - but that only served to make the local societies paranoid of the newly enlarged group's intentions - they were now able to open stores pretty much wherever they pleased which made for an uneasy conflict of interests as they were also supposed to be responsibile for promoting the society-owned stores. This reached a peak when Alldays was taken over - to allay fears the Co-op sold stores in traditional society areas at a very attractive rate, intended as a goodwill gesture. It didn't help much - the Co-op societies, many of which were struggling and on the brink of bankruptcy, began a series of defensive maneuvers intended to challenge the Co-operative Group - mergers created large groups like United.

Needless to say the distrust was such that when the Co-operative Group consumed Somerfield they didn't extend the olive branch again. Regardless, whatever gentlemens agreement there might have been between societies and the group has basically gone to pot.