Supermarket chain Morrisons has made the move to sell off a huge amount of its convenience stores across the country.
140 M local convenience stores are being sold to a team which includes retail entrepreneur Mike Greene, and which is funded by Greybull Capital.
Earlier in the year it was reported that convenience stores were hurting the sales of the large superstores. Furthermore, in March, Morrisons reported an annual loss of almost £800m.
The stores themselves won’t be gotten rid of, however. They will undergo a re-brand and become a shop called “My Local”, playing off the local factor of convenience stores which has made them so popular in recent years.
This means that the 2,300 staff working at these store will be kept on, and, in addition, there will be an estimated 200 extra jobs created when stores which are currently closed are re-opened under the new brand.
Morrisons bought out a large number of small stores in an attempt to increase their presence in the country, but seem to have bought too many, too fast, and without enough caution. 30% of the convenience stores that Morrisons had opened since 2011 apparently were not performing well, leading to this mass sale.
Despite the failure of the compact M local, chief executive David Potts said: “We remain open to other opportunities in convenience in the future.” Morrisons has also fallen behind in the online world, the most convenient of all services, compared to other stores and to companies like Amazon.
Large supermarkets are an integral factor in our grocery buying, and we won’t see them go any time soon, but the move towards more convenience is a big one, and the way that it has affects the sales of the main stores is unprecedented.
