Latest insights and store visits

Following on from its partnership with Carrefour, which covers France, Argentina, Italy and Spain, Glovo has announced it is expanding in Kenya too.

New partnerships follow market entry in Q1 2019

Glovo entered Kenya in January 2019 and has since been adding new partners in the country. In this new wave of partnerships Glovo said it had tied up with Naivas Supermarket, Zucchini Greengrocers and Onn The Way Supermarket, amongst others. The growing range of partnerships means that consumers have a wider range of options when buying through the app. Glovo enables shoppers to buy from restaurants, coffee shops and supermarkets in the country.

Expansion to continue

Commenting on the expansion, Glovo’s general manager for Kenya, William Benthall, said: “In the long run these partnerships will help us achieve our broader strategy of being a single platform for all our customer’s needs and deliveries.” Glovo is also looking for opportunities to continue its expansion in Africa. Having launched in Kenya, Morocco, Egypt and Ivory Coast, the company said it was investigating opportunities in Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The retailer has sold four stores, and is closing a further three as it focusing on long-term profitability.

Seven stores to close

Waitrose has sold its Bromley, Oadby and Wollaton stores to Lidl, and has also sold its Sandhurst store to an unnamed retailer.

Stores in Marlow, Stevenage Waterside (British Airways Headquarters) will also close.

The 677 Partners impacted by the closures are currently in consultation.

Focusing on long-term profit

Waitrose & Partners Director of shop trade Mark Gifford said "We're making good progress and Waitrose & Partners is on track for profit growth this year but, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, we haven't been able to find a way to make these shops profitable in the long term."

At the end of the last financial year Waitrose reported progress on profits, growing operating profit by 18.1% to £203.2m, as it focused on improving gross margins. Long-term financial sustainability is a top priority for the Partnership.

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Kroger’s data-science division, 84.51°, has launched a new analytics solution to help branded suppliers better position their products with consumers, in-store and online.

Single view of in-store and online performance

The new tool, Stratum, has been developed to help Kroger’s branded suppliers gain new insights into product performance. Given Kroger’s broad reach, Stratum will be fuelled with insights from one out of every two households in the US, delivering conclusions that are representative of consumer behaviour nationally. With access to in-store and online purchases in a single view, brands will be able to access data on sales performance, inventory and out-of-stocks, ranging, promotions, customer segmentation and behavioural insights, new item performance, and in-store space management. Kroger will also be able to apply the tool to its private label portfolio.

Source: IGD Research

Enhanced data visibility

The platform provides Kroger’s suppliers with an enhanced level of granularity. Users can analyse sales performance at item and store level, evaluate promotional performance and better understand who their customers are to determine white space opportunities. Customer behaviour reports highlight new, loss, retained and switching behaviour, helping brands to gain insights into household preferences. Suppliers will also be able to track inventory daily and improve demand forecasting.

Developing alternative profit streams

Kroger established 84.51° four years ago when it purchased the remaining 50% of its joint venture with Dunnhumby and Tesco. The business was further enhanced with the acquisition of Market6 in 2016. The launch of Stratum aligns with its plan to change its profit model through developing alternative profit streams. It plans on optimising its stores, logistics and data assets to create incremental new profit streams as part of its goal to grow operating profit by $400m by 2020.

Data as a competitive advantage

Data capabilities are increasingly becoming a source of competitive advantage in food retail. Through 84.51°, Kroger has established a lead in this space which it can use to drive additional income and optimise to enhance the performance of its private label portfolio. Retailers have been investing in technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to enable them to mine their data at scale and identify new insights. The challenge for manufacturers is to ensure they are developing their own data capabilities in a similar way.

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