Station retail units

[fairysdad]

Okay, possibly not really a 'railway' question as such, but something I've been wondering recently (and it popped up in a thread a while back which prompted the question).

When a station has two of the same shop, are they classed as one branch or two? For instance, London Waterloo has two WH Smiths, and two M&S branches in it (possibly other multiple ones, but those are the only ones I know of off the top of my head!); even on a smaller scale, Epsom station has a Puccino coffee shop on both platforms.

I know it's probably down to the individual company, but are the multiple units run as one (ie, stock control, staffing, management, etc) or two separate stores?

 

[LowLevel]

Okay, possibly not really a 'railway' question as such, but something I've been wondering recently (and it popped up in a thread a while back which prompted the question).

When a station has two of the same shop, are they classed as one branch or two? For instance, London Waterloo has two WH Smiths, and two M&S branches in it (possibly other multiple ones, but those are the only ones I know of off the top of my head!); even on a smaller scale, Epsom station has a Puccino coffee shop on both platforms.

I know it's probably down to the individual company, but are the multiple units run as one (ie, stock control, staffing, management, etc) or two separate stores?

It depends entirely on the location and company as you've already said.

For example a station I know has 3 different SSP Pumpkin/Jam Jar/Upper Crust outlets. The same staff work in them all using the same stock etc. The same applies to the 2 WH Smith outlets - same staff etc.

 

[route101]

Glasgow Central has two WHS smiths .And a fair few SSP units .

 

[Iskra]

It depends on the company. And even then it can vary too.

The company I work for has some that are managed separately, and some that are run as one. It seems to depend on how busy the units are and the experience of the managers involved.

There are lots of positives/economies to running several units as one, such as sharing staff and stock, but speaking from experience it's a very different challenge from running one unit.

Also bear in mind that a lot of the retail units you see at stations may be franchises, so they may take a different approach compared to what the brand they are operating would do themselves.