Supermarket chain Lidl is offering ‘finder’s fees’ worth potentially more than £20,000 to people in Liverpool to help with its push to open new stores in the city. Tony McDonough reports
Supermarket chain Lidl is offering to pay ‘finder’s fees’ to people in Liverpool who help it identify suitable sites for new stores.
Lidl is aiming to operate 1,100 stores in the UK by the end of 2025. Earlier this year it opened its 900th UK store. In January this year it opened a new outlet in Edge Lane – its 900th UK store – creating 40 jobs.
Earlier in April it secured planning consent for a 21,500 sq ft outlet on the site of the former Coronation pub in Belle Vale. And also this month LBN reported it hasn’t given up hope of opening a new store on the site of the former Abbey Cinema in Wavertree, creating 30 jobs.
The company says it will pay a finder’s fee to anyone that identifies a suitable site for a new Lidl store. The fee is either 1.5% of the total freehold purchase price or 10% of first year’s rent for leaseholds, which would equate to £22,500 for a completed £1.5m site purchase.
It is currently targeting 14 locations in Liverpool where it would like to build new outlets. They are the city centre, Aigburth, Allerton, Anfield, Gateacre, Hunts Cross, Netherton, Norris Green, Old Swan, Speke, Vauxhall, Walton, West Derby, Woolton.
The German chain opened its first store in the UK in 1994. It is investing £1.3bn in its expansion across 2021 and 2022. Since the beginning of 2022 it has already opened 23 new stores across the country.
Richard Taylor, chief development officer at Lidl GB, said: “We know that the majority of British shoppers still love doing their shopping in person and we are as committed as ever to opening new stores and enhancing our existing ones.
“We’re opening an average of one new store a week, which is incredible, and our teams have done a phenomenal job of keeping that pace going over the last couple of years. But there are still communities up and down the country that are telling us how much they want – and need – a Lidl store.
“We work with some of the best people in the industry to identify new sites, but we also know how engaged our future and existing customers are and we want to build on this. Our finder’s fees are, therefore, available to absolutely anyone that can identify a viable option for a new store that we’re not already aware of.”
Members of the public who know of potential sites are encouraged to check details against Lidl’s site requirements and contact the supermarket’s property team with further details. For more information click here.