Customers spend more at ‘People’s Supermarket’

The People’s Supermarket, co-founded by eco-friendly chef Arthur Potts Dawson and former Marks & Spencer commercial executive Kate Bull last year, is essentially a cooperative shop that offers discounts to its members. Its aim is to restore the balance in the food retail sector, where local growers have increasingly seen their margins cut by the big supermarkets. It also allows shoppers to reduce their environmental footprint by buying locally whilst keeping their costs down by becoming members and volunteering in the shop.

Customers are spending on average £3 to £5 more each week at the store in central London than they were a few months ago, according to Bull. On Saturdays that spend is averaging £10 or more. "It’s going up incrementally every week. In the last four weeks it’s gone up 20 per cent," she told GreenWise.

Bull explained that having such a large increase on weekends means the shop is drawing more customers from the surrounding community. "They are choosing to use us as their local shop," Bull said.

The business model
To keep the shop’s costs low, people who shop at the coop are encouraged to become members. For a member fee of £25 and a promise to work four hours a month, members receive a 10 per cent discount on their purchases. For most businesses, labour makes up a large portion of the expenses, so having employees who are nearly all volunteers allows the shop to offer its products for less.

Expanding range
With sales up, The People’s Supermarket is looking to expand its range of items while maintaining its green credentials.

"One of the big things we’ve been trying to do is identify what supermarkets sell and what we don’t sell, and how do we acquire that in a more ethical, green, sustainable way," Bull said.

Channel 4 is currently airing a four-part series on The People’s Supermarket, the first episode of which ran last Sunday.

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Related links:
www.thepeoplessupermarket.org