Bestway announces development plans for its symbol groups
The fourteenth Bargain Booze within a Costcutter store has just opened (in Crawley Down, West Sussex), and Bestway is scheduled to open one a week between now and the end of the year, according to retail director Mike Hollis.
Speaking at Bestway’s first Retail Showcase at the Liverpool Exhibition Centre, Hollis also announced that the wholesaler has opened a total of 400 new accounts since 1 July 2022.
Around 1,000 retailers from Costcutter, Bargain Booze, best-one, Wine Rack and Bestway’s Xtra Local retail club attended the event, where 140 suppliers took stands and there were over 100 special deals.
New best-one branding was on show, and Hollis promised further symbol development. “We’ve still got further work to do on the best-one evolution, and we’re also looking at Wine Rack and Bargain Booze. And then, in the next 12 months, we’ll be looking at Costcutter as well.”
He added: “We’ve put up 90 new best-one fascias [since 1 July 2022] – we’ve had a big push on that, and that’s going to continue for the foreseeable future – and we’ve grown our own-label sales across all our supply chains by nearly 20% to be worth over £60 million.”
Following simplification of the Costcutter rebate during the past year, the best-one rebate will be simplified, and details of that will be announced next month.
Bestway is also planning to upskill its field team, starting at the end of the summer. Jamie Davison, who takes over from Hollis on 1 July, said: “We’re going to put the team through this upskill to help you as retailers look at your business through the lens of the shopper, because keeping your shoppers coming is important but making your business more relevant to a wider catchment is really where the magic’s at. That’s how we’re going to drive your footfall and make your turnover base even bigger.”
Bestway recently held its first retailer working party, in Northern Ireland, and it intends to introduce more working groups, with some of them focusing on specific topics. “When we’ve got certain topics [to discuss] or strategic developments we want to make, we’re going to bring retailers together and we’re going to invite our suppliers to get involved as well,” he explained.
Davison commented: “As Bestway we don’t want to be a cold, calculated, transactional wholesaler. We want to be really engaging. We want to listen to our retailers. We want to work with our suppliers. Collaboration is going to be again a key focus area for us as a business moving forward because we’ve all got a win.”
Managing director Dawood Pervez added: “We are trying to make the journey for our customers as frictionless as possible so that they can have one credit facility, one rebate platform and use any of our different routes to market or supply chains.
“We will continue to focus on delivering the best promotions we can, doing the best we can on getting availability as good as it can be, and helping our customers navigate these extraordinary economic conditions.”
Published Date: May 26, 2023
