Kapil Patel joined One Stop at the beginning of February 2015 after previously operating as a Spar.
‘Before we joined, I made sure to visit current franchise stores and was immediately impressed by the store standards and the product range. When we became a franchise, we noticed the support was superior to our previous symbol group, especially during the transition. We received help during the planning, design, merchandising and overall look of the store, which we didn’t receive from our old symbol group.’
One Stop’s buying power allows Kapil to compete with supermarket promotions and price his every day essentials competitively, while maintaining healthy margins.
‘The key benefits that we’ve noticed since we joined One Stop is pricing – now we sell items that are cheaper. Secondly, the promotions are a lot better and the margins are still reasonable, whereas before, we would dread selling promotional lines as we’d have to try and maintain margin.
During seasonal sales periods, we’ve spotted that promotional activity is quite strong. For example, Easter egg sales are quite competitive with the pricing and range. We also started stocking flowers for Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. We’ve had positive comments from customers on quality.’
Now, operating as a One Stop allows him to stock a wider range, drawing in more customers with different interests.
‘One of the key areas we wanted to improve was increasing our alcohol range and our chilled food offer. The refit had an immediate effect, as we’ve enhanced our BWS range and improved the lunch time and evening meal deal selection, which our customers have recognised and brought into already.’
