Comment: Does Sainsbury's new 'micro' format need a new name?

Sainsbury’s has opened a ‘micro’ convenience store just across the road from its “store support centre” (aka head office) in Holborn. Close inspection reveals that this trial format is in fact a very dinky Sainsbury’s Local.

A heavy emphasis has been placed on ‘food for now’ with a modicum of ‘food for later’, yet although this is a very small store, there is no sense of quart into a pint pot.

“Sainsbury’s has looked at the heart of a very large city and decided that there is still room for diversification”

John Ryan

That is due to some pretty canny editing of the offer and meal-for-one-sized portions of much of what is on the shelves (although there are cakes beneath a banner that informs the shopper that they are perfect for “sharing” – for office birthdays and suchlike, presumably).

All of which is impressive. Sainsbury’s has looked at the heart of a very large city and decided that there is still room for diversification as far as its store portfolio is concerned. The fact that this is a pilot is symptomatic of supermarkets’ modus operandi – try something out and see if it’s worth pursuing.

New name?

That may well prove to be the case with this particular mini Sainsbury’s Local, but does it mean it should be given a new name, in recognition of the fact that it is even smaller than one of the grocer’s normal convenience stores?

The view of one reader of the story which appeared in Retail Week last week was that perhaps it should. But would that make sense? The real question is whether the name on a supermarket logo means much to the shopper or whether this is more about internal discipline for highly systematised retailers?

Indeed, do shoppers care at all whether they are in a Little Waitrose or a Waitrose, a Tesco Extra or a one of the retailer’s Express outlets, as long as their needs are catered for?

There is a sense perhaps that retailers have created format labels as much for their own convenience as for their shoppers’, no matter how much they may protest that everything they do is governed by their customers.

The short answer to the point about a micro convenience store trading under the Sainsbury’s Local banner may well be why bother with yet another format name? It probably isn’t necessary and at a time when format proliferation seems to have levelled off, perhaps it might be time to call time on yet more names.