7 minute read
RETAILER INTERVIEW: ABDUL MAJID
HOW’S YOUR WEEK BEEN... ABDUL MAJID?
BUSINESS IS SLOWLY RETURNING TO ‘NORMAL’ AT ABDUL MAJID’S NISA STORE IN BELLSHILL BUT THEEXPERIENCED 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 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 were in the same boat as every other wholesaler and they had to learn to adapt and evolve quicker than they’d ever had to before. But they did a good job and so did a lot of the manufacturers who quickly dropped slower selling lines so they could concentrate on the lines that retailers and customers wanted. By the time we got to June we were in good shape and now we’re more or less back to where we need to be.
DID IT CAUSE CHALLENGES IN THE STORE?
Well, 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. You couldn’t have gaps on the shelves so we had to re-merchandise throughout the store more or less constantly to keep it looking good and to give focus to the lines that shoppers wanted.
DID YOU SEE PANIC BUYING?
Yes, on the usual lines like toilet rolls, pasta and flour. That was what was really causing the problem. But once the novelty had worn off for shoppers, we quickly went back to decent availability and we’ve been able to manage it reasonably well ever since.
DID YOU SEE ANY UNUSUAL TRENDS?
We went overnight from selling all the standard convenience lines to selling a huge amount of grocery, which we haven’t done in a long time. Tins and packets and stuff like that. But, having said that, pretty much every category in the store has been selling solidly. Chilled has been flying, fresh is the same, alcohol is trading way up – everything sells at the moment!
YOU KEPT YOUR HOT FOOD COUNTER OPEN?
Yes, but on a limited menu. We have three staff on it and two had asthma so we had to furlough them and we were left with just one. We reduced the opening hours to 8am to 6pm and offered a smaller menu but we kept it open and it’s been flying. More recently, our two furloughed staff returned so we could extend the hours and increase the menu. It’s been absolutely bonkers. Breakfast and lunch are hectic.
ANY OTHER STAFF ISSUES?
We’ve been quite lucky for a number of reasons. One, my team has been absolutely brilliant and I can’t thank them enough for their efforts and commitment. Secondly, we didn’t have to recruit new staff because many of our part-time staff are students so they could all move to full-time. That meant we avoided all the headaches of recruiting new staff and training them. That was a massive help. All the local takeaway food places like Greggs were closed so we got a lot of that trade too.
HOW HAS THE FACE MASK SITUATION BEEN GOING?
I know that some retailers have been reporting that very few customers have been wearing coverings but I’d say that about 90% of our customers have been compliant. It’s quite a strange thing for customers to get used to. Some just honestly forget so we remind them at the till and they’ll usually take a mask and put it on there and then. There are some folk who just point-blank refuse, but it’s not our job to enforce the law so we simply remind them and leave it at that. I don’t want my team getting into arguments. The one thing I would say is that we get lots of trade workers in for their breakfast and lunch; I’ve never known so many workies to claim to have asthma!
TELL US ABOUT YOUR NUNS
Ha ha! We have two convents near us which the nuns aren’t allowed to leave, so we got a panic call one day at the start of lockdown asking if we could deliver groceries to them. They were literally running out of food. We were only too happy to help and we’ve been delivering to them ever since.
DO YOU OFFER A HOME DELIVERY SERVICE?
We do. It started out more as a community service for elderly and infirm or for those self-isolating. We got together with a local church, St Gerard’s, that wanted to help. Together we identified those in the community that needed help. The priest even delivered the groceries, so it was quite a nice thing to do. Then another church, Sacred Heart, got in touch and said they wanted to get involved too. They’re at the other end of Bellshill so it meant we were covering the whole of the area. The churches gave small donations and we raised some funds in various ways which let us help those that need a little help.
DO YOU USE A DELIVERY APP?
No, we decided to give the business to a local company, Deliver Bellshill, which is run by a family friend. It’s just a small business but it gave them some work and it kept the revenue locally. Customers just log onto their website which then takes them to our product list and they can order that way. I know we could do much more business with one of the apps like Snappy Shopper but for the minute, we want to just keep it as a community initiative.
ANYTHING INTERESTING IN THE PIPELINE?
We’re working on producing a range of ready meals that we make ourselves here in store. We’ll package and flash chill them ourselves which should help us grow evening sales. The hot food counter is a huge success at breakfast and lunch so we’re working on growing evening sales and we hope this will accelerate that.
AH, CORONAVIRUS, THE GREAT ACCELERATOR…
Absolutely. It’s been a horrendous time, but it has forced us to speed everything up. Retailers were all looking at improving areas of their business like food-to-go, home
delivery and so on but coronavirus has made us all deal with them much quicker and that’s got to be a good thing for our sector. It’s obviously made a lot easier because of the inflated sales so we can afford to move a bit quicker on new initiatives, but it’s important that we do make use of these additional sales in a positive way that will have a long- term beneficial impact on our businesses.
SO LIFE’S GOOD?
I would say that, exactly! It’s been just frantic and we’ve basically just been trying to keep our head above water for months – but we’ve learned a lot and I think our customers have also learned a lot about how important their wee local store is to them. I hope they remember that long into the future.
