Overview
RMS has supported Sainsbury’s for over 7 years with many new store openings and refurbishment projects, refrigeration, general merchandising and beauty transformation projects. In addition to providing store support, RMS provides a wide range of skill sets to Sainsbury’s, from merchandising dressers to systems specialists and project team leaders.
Our team work alongside Sainsbury’s staff to support the active programme of retail change projects across their UK store estate.
Sainsbury’s have launched a new 25,000sq.ft superstore located in the village of Hook near Basingstoke. It is a bespoke, state of the art shopping destination and will be Sainsbury’s most energy efficient supermarket to date.
The new store will provide customers with an extensive selection of products including Sainsbury’s popular Habitat brand, as well as an Argos collection point open inside the store.
The store’s energy efficient design that includes being powered by 100% renewable electricity, is a part of Sainsbury’s wider commitment to becoming Net Zero in its own operations by 2035.
Approach
RMS supported the opening of Sainsbury’s Hook by providing:
- 7,410 hours of support
- A team of 30 individuals on days and 18 individuals on nights at peak
- A team dedicated to the Argos implementation
- Specialist systems work preparing the store for opening
- Post store opening store support
Our teams began by completing five days of ticket preparation the week prior to merchandising support beginning, to ensure that all Shelf Edge Labels (SEL’s) were ready to be implemented across the new store on main shelving, shelving ends and payment till ends.
We then had two weeks to transform an empty new store with zero stock on the shelves, to a fully stocked store that would be merchandised to planogram and ready for trading on the 16th May.
Our teams carried out the full process for merchandising, beginning with profiling every aisle’s shelves to the required planogram requirements and siting the SEL’s as per the shelving plans. The teams managed to get around 80% of the profiling and preparation work completed on day one, which was an incredible achievement and put us massively ahead of schedule to be able to deliver on a challenging large project.
Empty shelves profiled and set to planogram ready for stocking
Once every aisle, bay and shelf had been fully prepared for stock, our teams began the big task of stocking every product line from scratch and at the peak of the project we had 30 people on days and 18 people on nights to complete the stock replenishment across the store.
Our systems specialists carried out the systems work to ensure the store was ready and legal for opening. The systems work included carrying out sequencing which tells Sainsbury’s store computers where every product is by location within the store, including the width and cap of the shelves so the system can know the maximum stock levels on the shelf to then be able to order the stock accurately.
The team also made sure every ticket was legal from a trading standards perspective and to ensure an optimal customer experience, any shelf tickets with even a slight crease, tear or wrinkle were replaced.
Challenges
The main challenge throughout the duration of the project was ensuring there would be access to the store whilst still under the last stages of construction and that all aspects would be ready for us to begin our work, as there were many final parts being worked on ready for opening.
We had to work against tight timelines ready for opening day, but our teams rose to the challenge and by working so efficiently from day one, they put us in a really good position in order to successfully deliver the project.
Conclusion
The final outcome was a successfully executed project, with all tasks completed in the originally agreed timeframe and cost.
Our teams merchandised the store to incredible standards, paying the utmost attention to every small detail, resulting in a phenomenal looking store that was ready to open and trade on the 16th May.
Due to the success of the store launch, Sainsbury’s have requested an extension of our support due to exceptional customer demand in these first few days and weeks and our teams will continue to support the Hook store by keeping the shelves stocked and the store ready for trading each day.
The feedback from the store was fantastic, Sainsbury’s Delivery Manager in Channel Operations, Matt, said:
“I would like to officially thank you and the RMS team for all of your support in landing Hook New Store.
Without Sam leading the team, this investment would have been a lot harder for all involved, especially myself.
On behalf of myself, Mark and Andy, please pass on our thanks to all who supported us on days, nights and in Argos.”
“I had every confidence in our teams that they would successfully deliver this project for Sainsbury’s. It was an incredibly high profile new store opening for our retail partner, but to us merchandising is what our teams live and breathe everyday, so I knew they would deliver and exceed expectations.
The final result on opening day showed some of the best attention to detail I have ever seen and I am immensely proud of the RMS teams that worked on this project and made it such a success.”
Paul Hodges, Account Manager.
