Morrisons: ‘Unwilling poster child for the squeezed middle in supermarkets'

Rachel Covill
10th January 2014
inShare
MORRISONS urgently needs to inject new ideas into its strategy after it unveiled poor Christmas trading results yesterday, a retail expert has said.
Phil Dorrell, director of the retail consultancy Retail Remedy, says that the supermarket chain, which saw total sales slump 1.9% and like-for-like sales drop 5.6% in the six weeks to January, has become “the unwilling poster child for the squeezed middle in supermarkets.”
He said: “Its agony goes from bad to worse as the upstart discounters scythe through its market share.
“Of all the Big Four, its offering is closest to that of the increasingly confident Lidl and Aldi. As a result Morrisons is haemorrhaging customers to its cheaper rivals, without being able to appeal to the middle class shoppers who have helped Sainsbury’s thrive.”
Mr Dorrell called Morrisons’ stores “dated” and that the brand is “digitally nowhere.”
“2014 is set to be the year of its great online push, but it is coming to the party embarrassingly late,” he said.
And if it markets its online proposition like it has been marketing its stores, then it will be on a hiding to nothing. Then there’s the awkward fact that it has the oldest shoppers of the Big Four grocers, who are not exactly known for online retailing.”
Dorrell said that despite ramping up the number of its convenience stores, it is still behind the curve.
“Such dreadful Christmas numbers will concentrate Dalton Philips’ mind. He must urgently inject new ideas into Morrisons’ strategy,” he said.
“But at the same time he and his team need to assess whether the ideas mooted so far – such as clothing and more baby offerings – are relevant to its wavering customer base.”