Talking Retail Grocery and product news for independent retailers
As part of an extension of his store to 1750 sq ft, Premier helped Mandeep install a wide range of improvements, including several specialist sections highlighting what the store offers.
These include:
- Refresh @ Premier – at the front of the store, a new area including F’real, Tango Ice Blast, Fanta Frozen, Jolly Rancher and Hershey milk shakes, along with coffee and hot chocolate
- Food to go area – completely new and offering much wider range of hot and cold snacks and meals
- Chilled and fresh area – doubled in size, with the introduction of 200 new lines. Sales for fruit and vegetables alone are now running at £500 a week and growing
- Frozen zone – at the back of the store, selling £1200 of products a week
- Vaping @ Premier Zone – introducing three full bays of vaping products and equipment. Sales now £2000 a week
- Beer Cave – a stand-alone section with a skylight in the ceiling to draw shoppers into the area, sales and profit have both increased 50%
Mandeep has also started “Singh’s Drop” a delivery service, delivering to shoppers’ doors within 30 minutes.
Sales from this now run at £15,000 a week.
He said: “We are really, really pleased with the numbers we are seeing – sales and profits both exceeding our expectations and we’ll have pay back in a year, which is great.” 
Total sales at the store are now £56,000 a week, margin is up 6% and footfall has increased by 20%.
Martyn Parkinson, sales director at Booker, said: “We have learnt a lot from this project and I’m really pleased to be able to take the successes and roll them out to both our existing retailers and new members.”
