Sharon’s c-store diary: thinking outside the box

Sharon Kane: thinking outside the box

Sharon Kane, award-winning c-store manager at Spar Cullybackey, part of the Henderson Retail group in Northern Ireland, on awards success and seasonal product innovations.

We had a really good night in London at the Convenience Retail Awards last month, where six of our company-owned stores picked up awards, as finalists, highly commended and winners in various categories.

We were delighted to be a finalist in our category, which was for Large Format Stores, as the competition was extremely tough, and seems to be getting tougher each year.

We also scooped four awards at our own company annual awards conference, so it was a successful month for us all round.

Spar Cullybackey: finalist in Large Store Format category in Convenience Retail Awards

The big event in March, however, was Mother’s Day. Despite doubts about consumer spending, our trading period was a great success.

Flower sales, as usual, were great, although we noticed a trend towards potted flowers and plants rather than the more traditional bunch of cut flowers this year. But, with a great margin on both, who’s complaining?

Chocolates also sold well, as did our wrapped gifts, and scented candles and picture frames were very popular this year. I think there is a lesson we can learn from this – we can diversify our product range for occasions such as these and not just rely on standard bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates. We need to offer our customers a wee bit more.

So, for Easter, instead of offering just a chocolate egg, we have a range of wrapped gifts. This proved popular last year and hopefully it will be well received this year too.

As the multiples run deep-cut promotions on eggs, it is getting harder and harder for us to compete so we need to offer something different to protect our margins.

With no more awards ceremonies on the near horizon, April will enable us to recharge our batteries before the summer begins.

Hopefully, we’ll get some good weather at Easter, which will boost sales.

And, for once, the credit crunch may work in our favour, as more people may be holidaying at home.

Sharon Kane