Sharon's Convenience Store Report

September 1, 2009

The summer is more or less over and it is ‘Back to School’ time already, and all change on the seasonal section once again.

The shelves are now full of books, pens, pencils, school bags and lunch boxes plus a small display of BBQ products, just in case we are lucky enough to get a bit of good weather in September.

Sharon Kane

Some of our stores have created excellent back to school displays featuring blackboards with sums chalked on them. Some have even hung up the uniform from the local primary school.

This shows great community involvement and provides pupils from the local schools with everything they need for the new term.

Shortly, it will time for the Halloween displays to go up and the shops will be full of nuts, apples for bobbing and pumpkins.

The shops will be filled with false faces, treat or treat bags, costumes and decorated with witches, ghosts and cob webs; it will be the one time of year when we can get away with not cleaning the cob webs from the light fittings. After Halloween, it will be time for a major spruce up to get ready for Christmas trading.

Overall, we have had a pretty successful summer, despite the mixed weather.

We have also benefited from the Belfast Maritime Festival, when the Tall Ships sailed into the city for four days as the final port of the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009.

Thousands of people flocked to the city and surrounding areas to witness this great event and our stores in those areas had a fantastic weekend of trading at that time.

With all the talk of the credit crunch, there definitely seemed to be more people holidaying at home in Northern Ireland this year, which has ultimately lead to the success we have had in stores over the summer months.

I just hope it continues up until Christmas, so we can end the year on a high