Desert Island Stores: Paul Wilkinson of Deliveroo
Paul Wilkinson is product director of grocery/retail partners at Deliveroo – where he is playing a major role in the fast-growing grocery and non-food delivery division that involves working with the major grocers and retailers.
The store you remember from childhood?
This one is easy, Toys R Us at the Retail Park out the back of the Metrocentre in Gateshead. The Lego aisle in particular. You could always look at all the pictures in the Argos catalogue but a special birthday trip to actually pick what you wanted off-the-shelf (with the usual back and forth with parents about how big/expensive it could be) was always my favourite shopping trip of the year. I also remember when the Ikea just round the corner opened, which was maybe the second or third one in the country, caused gridlock for months and its maze-like interior was great for playing hide-and-seek in.
Most inspirational store to your career?
Metro future store in Germany – when I started at Tesco in the R&D team this was probably the most future looking grocery store anywhere. Some of the innovations in there still haven’t rolled out but many are now widely adopted.
Most frequently used store?
It’s a toss-up between two or three I think. The big shop is Tesco Online, which comes from one of the ‘dark stores’ so it has great availability. The Morrison’s next to my kids’ school for top-ups, it was one of the first to get the low-level produce fittings about a decade ago and does a good trade although I can’t help thinking that they could do with a bit more stock and a few more hours. Thirdly I guess there’s Amazon for just about everything else and if you counted the number of transactions on my card I suspect that would win.
The store you wished you’d created?
Amazon Go – it was an area that we had been investigating at Tesco for a long time but they really went all in on it and launched it before we could get Tesco GetGo live in one store. Roll-out for all of the similar stores has been slow but it solves two of the almost timeless grocery shopping problems, stock accuracy and queuing, so I think it is sort of inevitable as the costs keep coming down.
Your overall favourite store?
Recently I really like some of the M&S refits, particularly the food areas. I also love a visit to Eataly.
The store you’d like to take to the desert island?
It’s probably a bit of a cop-out but probably a big one. One of the Bass Pro Shops (big US outdoor supercentres) would be pretty handy for survival stuff and there’d also be plenty of stuff to keep you entertained (and books to read too). They are a great experience and worth a detour if you’re near one on your next US trip. For less of a survival angle then maybe somewhere like Fortnum’s. Live a decadent few months before having to rough it.
