Inspire

Inspire our customers through a differentiated, super-specialist shopping experience.

Objectives

Specialism
We will become a super-specialist by:

  • Reducing our non-core products
  • Increasing our online ranges of motoring and cycling products
  • Investing in training with even greater focus on specialism

Innovation
We will lead and differentiate our markets with customer-led innovation by:

  • Utilising customer insight to develop products we know they want and need
  • Working with suppliers to jointly create, and bring to market, innovative products which are exclusive to Halfords

Customer Experience
We will improve our customer shopping journey online and in-store by:

  • Bringing Halfords' services and products together on one website
  • Focusing on personalisation by leveraging our Group-wide Single Customer View
  • Improving store layout, ensuring it is easy for customers to find the products and services they need

Progress made

  • Fully integrated Group web platform, delivering best-in-class customer experience
  • Optimisation of cycling space in all Retail stores
  • Exit of Cycle Republic, focusing investment on Tredz to serve the Performance Cycling market

Priorities for the year

  • Materially upweight our Group web platform and digital customer experience, to create an even more differentiated and specialist proposition

Case Study

New Web PLATFORM

In February, we launched our new Group web platform, transforming the digital experience and, for the first time, allowing customers to access an integrated services offer across Retail stores, garages and mobile vans through one website.

Our first transaction on the new website was a customer booking an MOT. This perfectly highlights one of the key strengths of this new platform – the heightened awareness and customer acquisition into Halfords Autocentres. We are already seeing an increase in customers shopping across the previously separate divisions of our business and expect this to continue to improve awareness of our business, with customers exploring all that the Group has to offer.

The COVID-19 lockdown significantly accelerated the shift to online ordering. The new website coped well with the rapid and significant increase in traffic and provided customers with an engaging, user-friendly and convenient channel at a critical time.