Co‑op is extending its online opening hours at three Scottish stores on the country’s World Cup match days.
King Street Co-op in Aberdeen, and Glasgow Co-op stores on Great Western Road and Alexandra Parade will go into “extra time” for the big Scotland games.
A further 177 stores across England will extend their delivery hours during national team football matches.
Deliveries, which normally shut off at 10pm, will run for up to an hour after the final whistle for all six group stage matches. So, for the Scotland match against Haiti, online orders will be taken up to 3.30am.
Co-op estimates that 40 million people are within reach of the participating stores and able to benefit from the additional quick deliveries. With the deliveries taking place late at night and in the early hours, quieter roads will also extend the catchment area.
As well as through its own online shop, Co-op will be processing deliveries through partners Uber Eats, Just Eats, Deliveroo and Amazon. Based on previous national sporting occasions, the convenience retailer is predicting an uplift in Quick Commerce (Q Comm) participation of up to 50% at peak times.
Kate McCrae, Co-op Retail Director, said: “Sport is often a time for people to come together, and we see a significant spike in QComm orders when the big national sporting moments occur. This summer, working with our delivery partners, we are supporting our shoppers by extending trading hours in 180 stores, often into the early morning hours, so they can be ‘fed and watered’ without missing a second of the football action. We’ve undertaken considerable supply planning to ensure we have availability of the right stock, in the right quantities and our promotional plan is also vital, so we offer great value on key lines most often bought on these occasions, so we can all celebrate (or commiserate!) together.”
The extended operating hours are underpinned by a structured supply strategy, with event‑led forecasting using historic tournament and fixture data; store‑specific ranging based on catchment, online penetration and demand profiles and, promotion‑driven planning with exclusive and time‑limited deals are modelled to predict demand spikes and capable of delivering up to 1,000% sales uplift on specific offers and increasing online participation by up to 30–50%.
