The Anonymous Widower

Will Lord Myners Get Co-Operation?

The BBC has reported on Lord Myners review of the Co-Operative Group.  Here’s the start of the BBC report.

The Co-operative Group spent too much time on takeover deals that proved “breathtakingly value-destructive,” an initial review has found.

Lord Myners’ review is highly critical of the group’s takeovers of Britannia building society and supermarket chain, Somerfield.

Just up the road from me is a new Co-Operative convenience store at Dalston Junction.

The Co-Operative Store At Dalston Junction

From the outside it looks good.

I regularly come home via Dalston Junction station, from where I catch the bus home to avoid a walk, so you’d think I’d be one of their target customers.

But when I did and I was wanting a bottle of wine for dinner at my son’s, there was only one person on the tills, no self-service ones and several people in the queue.

At another time, I went in looking for a Genius loaf.  They did have one, but it was like a plastic bag full of dog biscuits.

The management obviously couldn’t possibly organise a piss-up in the brewery.

I have three convenience stores from the main chains and several independent ones too, all within a short walk from my house. And if pushed, I can walk to the much bigger Sainsbury’s on Kingsland High Street!

I doubt, I’ll buy anything in that Co-Operative store in the next few years.

If that is the best they can do in a thriving retail area, no wonder they’re going down the drain.

I do hope that when they finally decide to jack it in at Dalston Junction, that this store becomes a littleWaitrose. After all, in the next couple of years, the nearby Sainsbury’s will be getting a makeover, which will put more pressure on this Co-op store.

March 16, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | Business, World | Co-Operative Group, Shopping