Franchisee to open 10th One Stop store

Franchisee to open 10th One Stop store

Celebrations as Wilson Group hits double figures – a first for One Stop!

Brothers, Danny and Craig Wilson have opened their 10th franchise with One Stop which is also a milestone ‘first’ for the convenience store retailers as it is the first time anyone in the portfolio has gone into double figures.

The new store will be opening today (17th July) at Curlew Drive in Crossgates, Scarborough and will help to service the needs of the local community which has been increasingly getting to know the One Stop brand in the area, thanks to their growing number of stores in the Scarborough area as well as One Stop’s 900 other stores, which are located throughout the UK.

Head of One Stop Franchise, John Miller comments: “We’ve been running our One Stop franchise for over five years and we’re delighted to be welcoming Danny and his team for the 10th time. This is a real celebration for us and shows the strength of our offering which is enabling people, like Danny and Craig, to run multiple sites with complete ease.”

All of the Wilson Group stores are located in North Yorkshire and have been opened in fairly quick succession as new sites have been found which perfectly suit the needs of the local neighbourhoods. Danny even managed to keep his store rollout to schedule and opened two at the start of lockdown, which meant they were in place right at the time the local community needed them the most.

Danny Wilson is a former accountant who made the move to retail in 2005 when he opened the group’s first convenience store with another symbol group. However, he made the transition to One Stop in 2015 after becoming increasingly disillusioned with the previous offering. Danny explains: “Prior to moving to One Stop we didn’t have enough control of our operations and we needed something where there was more of a system in place.

“One Stop lends itself so well to multiple stores as the model helps you run them in the most efficient and disciplined way possible. They offer good promotions and the pricing is competitive. Our customers love what we do and offer them in all of our stores.

“For us, the automatic ordering across multiple sites has been really key and saved so much time. The systems have worked really well and every store has its own planogram, meaning we just review the orders when it’s generated so we always have fresh stock coming in. I’ve always wanted the managers to run the store and the One Stop system allows me to leave them completely in control, giving me more time to focus on other areas, including opening further sites.”

The integrated One Stop technology allows for auto replenishment at the touch of a button which takes all the guesswork out of stock-taking, re-ordering and store admin. Each store’s stock file is unique, so store managers know exactly what’s on the shelves, what is selling and where any product is at any given time. This takes the pressure off franchisees as they know this key role is taken care of.

When franchisees join One Stop there are a host of other benefits that are making the award-winning franchise model one of the most attractive propositions on the market. These include a fully managed store refresh up to the value of £50,000, including elements like a new layout, new fixtures and fittings inside and out, plus a special opening day celebration.

Each franchisee gets a dedicated Business Development Manager who will visit every month, whilst for everything else, One Stop’s Franchise Helpline is open 7 days a week.

With the sheer buying scale of One Stop, franchisees can take advantage of some of the best deals on the high street, which are then passed down to customers which further drives footfall into store.

This is all helping to provide One Stop franchisees with back-to-back growth each year and fully-fitted stores are seeing their weekly sales increase by an average of more than 20% in their first 13 weeks vs their last 8 weeks pre-refit.

John Miller concludes: “We are seeing more and more of our franchisees taking on multiple franchise sites as our advanced technology and back office systems do everything for them. This means that franchisees have more time either for themselves and their families, or to expand their businesses operations in line with their own plans and goals.

“Danny and Craig have signed on with One Stop for another five years and I look forward to seeing how their business and portfolio of One Stop stores continues to grow. It’s great to work with such forward-thinking, passionate and pro-active, customer-focused retailers. There are already a further three in the pipeline over the next few months, so we all wish them well with the opening of their latest store in Crossgates.”