Store tour: B&M Stevenage - High inventory helping to drive more sales?

Discount retailer B&M has been an exciting example of steady growth during recent years.

Since 2018 B&M revenue has grown by 33%. This growth has been driven by the core UK business, but especially the nascent French business.

More recently, the surge in sales has seen a slowdown. Over the last four quarters, the UK has slowed down and turned into decline.

The slowing sales and increased inventory (up 42,6% March year-on-year comparison) would put any retailer in a challenging spot.

We went to see how B&M manages the ongoing situation of inflation, declining consumer confidence and growing inventory.

B&M Stevenage is a reasonably typical B&M store and offers little surprises, but that’s what B&M is. No fancy and shiny shelves, just low prices and exciting products.

The store opens with the food section. Shelves are somewhat messy and messy in places. To drive additional shelves, the retailer has introduced “value”- bins stocked up with products one could easily buy in addition to the average basket. The value bins contain products such as cereal and canned food at very reasonable prices.

One thing worth taking a look at is the way B&M places products on the store floor in addition to shelves and gondola ends. There are numerous “mini displays” filled with Beer, fizzy drinks etc., right on the aisles. Not an appealing way of stocking your store up, but could it have something to do with the rocketing inventory levels? This way, the retailer can make space in its warehouses despite having stocked up stores.

The way B&M stores are filled with the stock on the aisles brings relatively little trouble to the customer. It could even drive additional sales and increase the feeling of a treasure hunt. At least B&M type of retailer gets away with it quite quickly, as this would never happen in Tesco.