BiS Henderson, specialist Logistics & Supply Chain Recruitment Consultants are committed to keeping their clients up to date with the latest developments in the sector. This post looks at the changing face of Logistics in the European market.
Edeka’s transfer of the German Spar fascias into its wholesale Edeka C+C arm on August 1 reflects the changing face of local retailing and wholesaling across Europe. It streamlines the delivered wholesale part of the business by integrating foodservice and retail outlets.
Whether multidrop delivery rounds for such widely differing users is manageable on a daily basis remains to be seen. The convenience store sector has always been traditionally close to wholesaling.
It just remains to be seen how easy it will be to manage delivery window restraints for some widely differing clients. A hotel will have different delivery scheduling requirements from a restaurant or a convenience store: there is no “one size fits all” option.
The change is of particular interest for the traditional home of hard discounters. Rather more than 20 years ago, the major continental European multiples were investing heavily in dedicated distribution depots and doing everything to simplify procurement for hypermarkets and supermarkets from Amsterdam to Zurich.
With 5,000 square metres and more of sales floor to stock at hypermarkets, the process of order consolidation could be streamlined to integrate orders a truckload at a time while SKUs were being counted in tens of thousands. Everybody knew then that at some point town centre retail sites would return to prominence in the multiples’ property strategies.
But, while there were trucks waiting to leave loading bays, the priority was clear: follow the money with out of town developments. In the event, the compact hard discount retail format has carved itself a distinctive foothold in high streets across Europe.
Mainstream multiples will not find the high streets a pushover as they try to re-establish a town centre presence after building a customer base that expects to turn up in a car, shop and go home in a single trip.
The discounters’ logistics model stocks stores with typically 1,200 SKUs and a rolling programme of non-food themes to ensure regular visits. These retail sites have geographically compact catchment areas, with location preferences for residential areas and access to public transport.
One advantage discounters have over the multiples returning to town centres is that discounters only have one retail identity and image to project. The major multiples have had to develop distinct fascias to go into town centres; for instance, Carrefour Market has to justify its branding and positioning alongside the out of town hypermarkets, as well as the different retail tickets for potentially identical SKUs.
At the same time, the broader mix of vehicles required in the fleets to service the different types of locations opens the door to increased operating costs. Just as the continental consumer is looking forward to leaving the car at home and saving some money by shopping nearer to home, major European multiples are re-investing in fleets to service a wider spread of store formats.
If you would like to know more about BiS Henderson Supply Chain & Logistics Recruitment Services, both in the UK and throughout Europe, please leave a comment below or visit BiS Henderson – Recruitment of Supply Chain Professionals by Supply Chain Professionals.
