Recovery plans in place
Published: 10 November, 2006
Superquinn, once renowned as one of the big innovative names in Irish retailing, is awakening from a long, slow decline, during which its new store opening programme came to a standstill. So far this decade, it has lost about a quarter of its regular customers, but under new ownership, all that is set to change, if executive chairman Simon Burke (47), gets his way.
Burke is an Irishman with an impressive UK retailing pedigree; he chaired Hamleys, the toy retailer, and was chief executive of Virgin Megastores. His other current interests include chairing Majestic Wines. But it's the turnaround at Superquinn that he is totally committed to delivering.
He wants to ensure that Superquinn regains its once dominant position as a highly-creative, customer-focused retailer. Step by step, he's implementing a detailed plan to overhaul every aspect of Superquinn's operations and cut out a huge amount of dead wood. Many inefficiencies are being rooted out and wasteful practices abandoned.
It all began when Select Retail Holdings bought out the Quinn family interests in Superquinn, nearly two years ago. Superquinn was set up in Dundalk in 1960 and under its then head, Feargal Quinn, who now has the symbolic role of non-executive president, it earned itself a reputation for retail excellence that was largely unrivalled. But the old-style Superquinn had peaked in the 1980s and it had been down hill all the way since then.
Now, Burke has put in place a E63m redevelopment programme for all 21 of its outlets.
Recently, the first of the new-style Superquinn stores opened at Blanchardstown, where in a E3m revamp, the outlet was totally reinvented. Traditional aisles have been maintained, but they are shorter. Much of the store, those sections serving fresh food, look more like a French market.
Simon Burke says that the old store had a tired look to it. He says it was a good testbed, because customers come from all social classes in the catchment area, from very well-off areas and not-so-wealthy ones.
More than 600 new lines have been put into the store so that every department has a good selection of brand-new lines. Shoppers are given a huge choice of fresh and pre-packed food solutions, as well as advice and help if they want it. Cooking demos are a highlight and Superquinn claims these are a first in an Irish supermarket.
Burke also says that they've introduced the most advanced retailing technology in Ireland, SuperScan and Fastlane, which complement the traditional checkouts and bag packing. The customer reaction has been great: sales have gone three times faster than they had anticipated.
He's planning to complete the revamp of all the stores within the next three years; he wants the job to be done as quickly as possible so they don't have some stores that look state of the art, while others look thoroughly jaded.
At the same time, many shortcomings within the Superquinn organisation are being weeded out and wasteful practices done away with. But it's not just the existing stores that are getting a total new look. Superquinn is very much in the market to open brand new stores around Ireland, not just in the greater Dublin area.
For developers, it'll be a golden opportunity that's been closed to them for a long time, as the old Superquinn had stopped its development programme. One of the planned new stores to which the company is strongly committed and which it hopes to open in late 2007, is in Ranelagh, a prosperous suburb close to the southside of Dublin city centre.
In a short time, Simon Burke and his new team have achieved much. They are determined to finish what they've started and keep alive that new-found spirit of creative invention that once characterised Superquinn in its heyday. But Superquinn's share of the retail grocery market is down to a measly eight per cent.
The big names, Tesco, Dunnes and Super Valu, are very aggresive in building their market share, all spending big money on new store openings. At the same time, many smaller upmarket food and wine retailers are building a niche for themselves, like Donnybrook Fair in south Dublin and the new Fallon & Byrne store in Exchequer Street in the city centre.
Caught between these two types of development, it's going to be an uphill struggle for Burke to get Superquinn back near the top of the heap, and if it doesn't work, then the sites will present some tasty morsels for developers.
