There have been a range of delivery issues with Costcutter's new buy-and-supply arrangement with Palmer and Harvey in Britain.
Last year, Costcutter entered into a joint venture with delivered wholesaler Palmer and Harvey, forming a company called The Buyco, to enable greater buying power and provide competitive prices for members. In addition, Costcutter signed an eight-year wholesale distribution contract with P&H to move its deliveries from Nisa to P&H.
As of this week, most Costcutter stores in Britain have now changed to P&H deliveries, however, there are plenty of teething troubles, according to reports in the English trade press.
Managers of many stores say that they are not receiving full deliveries and that deliveries have been late or have not been fulfilled at all. They also claim that they have yet to see the results of a promised price decrease. This is particularly bad timing, given that it is the middle of summer and the World Cup is taking place.
Costcutter has said that it is aware of the issues and that it is working with P&H to fix them as soon as possible. It expects the majority of the problems to be ironed out within the next three to four weeks. When the Northern Irish Costcutter stores moved to the new system back in March, it apparently took around three to four weeks to reach normal service levels.
© 2014 European Supermarket Magazine by Nicole Gernon
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