Supermarket Watch - How Sainsbury and Waitrose Got it Right but ASDA Didn't

Americans call it “The Big Mo” and it means that happy state when a business has momentum - the team is winning, confidence is brimming over, and whatever is being done is a huge success. Sainsbury, with 19 consecutive quarters of growth under their belts have it, Waitrose, currently the fastest growing supermarket have it, but ASDA whose sales have dropped month after month for nearly a year, most certainly do not have it.

Confidence about doing the right thing and doing it well is illustrated by the way these three supermarkets have executed their recent new initiatives. Sainsbury have revamped their premium “Taste the Difference” range with trading director Mike Coupe claiming that “this is the best range of premium food available in any supermarket”. At the other end of the scale Waitrose is trumpeting value credentials by saying they will match the Tesco’s price on 1000 major brands. In the middle, ASDA have announced the launch of “Chosen by You” which is a quality upgrade of their standard range, with products selected after talking to 40,000 people across the UK.
So here are three major activities, but it’s the way they have been executed which marks out Sainsbury and Waitrose as confident winners, and ASDA as an outfit that, temporarily at least, has lost its way.

Sainsbury’s have made sure that food shoppers across Britain know about the new range. They took out three and sometimes four page advertisements in the papers, are running a TV ad with Jamie Oliver, and are giving away glossy leaflets in store. Customers who shop on line get a message about the new range as soon as they click on to the website. Waitrose also took out three page advertisements, are advertising on TV, and have the price cut message when shoppers click on the website. They have put up big displays of the newly priced products in their shops, pinned up labels on the shelves, and just in case the message has still been missed, the dividers shoppers put on the checkout belt to signify the start of their shopping also mention the price cuts.

And what about ASDA? The range was launched on September 21st, but on a trip to the Leamington store today I saw only a couple of overhead posters talking about the range - easy to miss as few shoppers were walking around staring at the ceiling. There were no displays, no markers at the shelves, and no in store tasting sessions. There have been no advertisements, and when clicking on to the website the first message is that prices are low, the second that there is 15% off furniture, and only the third talks about “Chosen by You”.

Possibly ASDA don’t feel that the new launch is that big a deal, but this seems unlikely as their recently promoted MD has made a point of criticising the quality of its food, and in the press release that accompanied the launch he talks about ASDA now driving as hard on quality as it does on price. More probably, the launch smacks of a company that has lost its edge, cannot decide what its main message is, and forgotten the attention to detail that is vital. Retail is detail as someone once said. The ASDA approach It is a big contrast to the super- confident actions of Sainsbury and Waitrose.