RETAILER INTERVIEW
ABDUL MAJID NISA NORTH RD, BELLSHILL
HOW’S YOUR WEEK BEEN...
ABDUL MAJID?
BUSINESS IS SLOWLY RETURNING TO ‘NORMAL’ AT ABDUL MAJID’S NISA STORE IN BELLSHILL BUT THE EXPERIENCED RETAILER BELIEVES THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN AFTER CORONAVIRUS.
HOW’S YOUR WEEK BEEN, ABDUL? It’s been crazy as ever but there are more and more signs that things are very slowly starting to return to what we used to call ‘normal’ although to be honest I don’t see things ever being the same again in retail.
ARE SALES RETURNING TO MORE NORMAL LEVELS THEN? They’re definitely starting to slow down a little bit, but we’re still miles away from what used to be normal. At the peak of coronavirus we were trading about 100% up but in recent weeks that has started to tail off a bit. Having said that, last week’s numbers were probably still about 75% above what we would traditionally have done, so we’re still doing really well.
HOW SLOW IS THE DECLINE AND HOW SLOW DO YOU SEE IT BEING?
“I’ve been in local retailing for 40 years and in all that time I’ve never had to re-merchandise the store so often.” 14 I SLRMAG.CO.UK / ISSUE 13 / WEDNESDAY 15TH JULY 2020
I would say we’re probably losing maybe 2% or 3% a week at the moment, so it’s very much a gradual reduction rather than a sharp decline. I think it’s going to be a long, long time before we get back to old levels and, if I’m honest, I don’t know if things will ever go back to normal.
HOW HAVE THE LAST FEW MONTHS BEEN FOR YOU? April and May were chaos. Because coronavirus kicked in so quickly nobody had any time to prepare for it. Availability became a huge issue but that was true for every retailer and every wholesaler. Nisa did everything they could but they
