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Early on in lockdown, Nisa retailer Miv Chahal took a call from a customer whose husband was shielding. All the customer needed was a bottle of juice, but she couldn’t come out to the shop to get it. Chahal said “no problem”, picked the juice off the shelf and walked over to her house to deliver it. It was a small act, but important for two reasons. First, it indicates the sort of shop the Chahal family runs at Prudhoe in Northumberland. Second, it gave Chahal a sense of what he needed to do to serve the community that uses the store.
He says: “It was about a 10-minute walk to get there and back, but as I walked I realised that during lockdown a delivery service was going to be important. As soon as I returned, I started to plan free delivery so we could take people’s shopping to them if they couldn’t get to the store.”
Home delivery
So it was that Nisa Prudhoe started its own home delivery service. It wasn’t sophisticated; the method was simple. Customers would telephone the store and Chahal or another member of staff would keep them on the phone, pick up a basket and walk around the aisles as they talked, putting what the customer wanted in the basket. Then it was back to the till, ring up the cost, and walk over to their house with their shopping. At first, payment had to be in cash, because the store didn’t have the right technology to take card payments over the phone. Later on, Chahal sorted that out with Worldpay and customers could pay by card so their shopping could just be dropped off on the doorstep.
Community roots
There is something endearingly old-fashioned about all this, but then the Chahal store has always been a retailer rooted in the community it serves. Chahal says: “We rely on the community for this business to survive and during the pandemic they relied on us. We didn’t want to let them down.”
At its height, the store was organising about 30 deliveries a day, “some walks, some car jobs” and it is still happening, says Chahal, “because a lot of people don’t feel comfortable coming to the store just yet”. This is partly because some of the customer base is elderly. One of the common destinations for deliveries has been a nearby residential complex of 46 flats for older residents.
Good causes
Yet, even before Covid, Nisa Prudhoe was one of those stores that embedded itself in the community it serves, not least because of Chahal’s influence. The shop has been contributing to good causes for years through Nisa’s Making a Difference Locally fund, which donates to a charity pot whenever the store sells an own-brand product. The money is given out in £500 chunks. Among those to benefit have been a local school given £500 for swimming lessons, a retirement home given £500 to install a defibrillator, and another £500 to a local football team to pay for its kit.
Chahal gets involved personally in a lot of this, never more so than when he ran 15 miles in May by doing 100 sponsored laps around the West Wylam precinct by his shop. Chahal is a keen runner and has run marathons in Berlin, Chicago, New York and London. The neighbourhood supported him so generously that he raised more than £2,000 for NHS Charities Together. Afterwards he said: “I’m lost for words. Each and every person who stood in the precinct or honked their horn made each stride easier.”
Store refit
For those that have been coming to the store, the experience has been enhanced because the 1,690sq ft shop had a refit just before Covid hit. Among other improvements, extra chillers were installed and the store’s appearance freshened up. This was always likely to boost the £25,000-a-week turnover, even before the boost that came with lockdown. In common with many other neighbourhood stores, Chahal saw a 50% increase in turnover in the first two months of lockdown. This has gently declined since then, but takings are still 25% up on pre-Covid levels. Average basket size has also risen by about 50% from the pre-Covid figure of £13.
Shorter hours
All of this was achieved on shorter opening hours during lockdown, from 8am till 6pm as opposed to the usual 6.30am to 8pm, a change brought in to allow more time for cleaning and re-stocking the shop.
The increased income is welcome, but it has been hard work for Chahal, his family and their six staff. This is especially so because his mother, Manjit, who normally helps in the store, was in isolation during lockdown, but also because the home deliveries added another dimension to the working day.
It all added up to 16 weeks without a day off for Chahal and his brother, Amar, as they made sure the store continued to run smoothly. It was only in August that Chahal eventually managed a family holiday. It was to be have been a trip to Greece, but he ended up in a caravan in Berwick-on-Tweed instead.
Second wave
On his return, Chahal hopes the boost in business that occurred during lockdown will not completely evaporate. He says: “We saw lots of new faces in the Covid period and maintaining that custom is a key issue for us. Hopefully, people who found us helpful during lockdown will repay that by continuing to make use of their local store after Covid is passed.”
But is Covid over? Chahal is taking no chances and already the store is preparing for the possibility of a second wave and localised lockdowns.
He says: “We have got to make sure we are ready for it if it happens again. That’s why we are very aware of our stock levels. We haven’t been able to increase our storeroom space, but we have been making sure we are making the most of what we have.”
SPONSOR’S COMMENT
Nisa sales director Steve Leach says: “Like many local independent retailers, Miv really cemented his place in the heart of the community during the coronavirus crisis and it’s clear to see his customers are genuinely grateful for the extra effort he put in to keep them fed during the pandemic. But what makes Miv special is the way he has brought all the community together through his own charitable efforts. I loved the fact he was inspired by Captain Sir Tom Moore to embark on his own fundraising challenge and that his sponsored marathon route took him round and round the fairly small shopping precinct area where he is such a familiar face.
“The comments shared on the store’s social media sites demonstrate just how important the store, staff and Miv himself are to the local community. And the number of donations made by shoppers in support of the charity marathon really were astounding.
“Clearly, Miv and his store were already playing a key part in the community before Covid-19. Nisa’s Making a Difference Locally charity has enabled him to make really valuable contributions. I continue to be in awe of the efforts independent retailers make to help their local area and the people they serve.”
By David Harris
