The GCAinterventions on Aldi and Amazon are perhaps too late for consideration in the fourth statutory review of the GCA, which assesses Mark White’s performance over a three-year period up to 31 March 2025. Nevertheless, the challenges are important for the reputation of GSCOP, which needs a high-profile win to re-engage suppliers and drive long-term progress on retailer compliance.
This year’s GSCOP survey results show a second year of compliance improvements, with 30% of suppliers experiencing code-related issues, down from 36% two years ago. But the GCA role has been around for over 12 years with consistent annual improvements – until 2021 when supplier issues were even lower at 29%. Even including this year’s progress, compliance has worsened under the tenure of current GCA Mark White, who came into the role at the end of 2020.
In his first few years at GCA, issues shot up largely down to two factors. Firstly, the retailer treatment of supplier CPIs during high inflation and the cost of living crisis. Secondly, Amazon, which came under the code of governance in July 2022. Whilst the recovery on issues is fantastic and shows a lot of GCA background work, these issues would have been containable with a code amendment on CPIs and an earlier tough stance on Amazon. The GSCOP is only as good as its Adjudicator.
GCA should push for more progress
There is a lot more that GSCOP can achieve: 41% of suppliers would still not consider reporting issues to the GCA. And the excellent recovery on issues in the survey distracts from an underlying concern that suppliers are disengaging, with awareness of confidentiality, understanding of the GCA role and GSCOP training all in significant decline for the first time. Nobody sees the GCA’s ongoing work in monthly retailer CCO meetings and the like, so a high-profile case is needed, or the code will stall.
Suppliers are ablaze about their privileged GSCOP environment in the UK. Twelve years ago that same metric showed a staggering 80% of suppliers were experiencing code issues. Many have forgotten what it was like then, just as in other markets those who have never experienced an environment of fairness fail to even envisage one.
Admittance of the GCA in the Aldi court case came first, followed by the Amazon investigation. It was inevitable with the latest survey showing that, despite Amazon’s improvements, 13% of suppliers are having issues – up from 12% and way ahead of the next worst at 3%.
My frustration, as I wrote in The Grocer in March, is that this investigation could have happened two years ago, followed by a move to prevent Amazon from trading in grocery until ready to do so fairly. The algorithmic nature of Amazon obviously makes it difficult to comply, but e-commerce is the future so it needs to be tackled, and Amazon can become another UK case study for others to follow.
After four years of poor performance, Amazon should be the first retailer to have a GCA fine. Yes, to cover the cost of the investigation, but mainly to bring awareness of their treatment of suppliers to UK consumers and raise the GSCOP profile.
Source : The Grocer
