Brothers Anish and Jamie (pictured) Keshwara are seeing the results of a dramatic extension and refit of their 2,400sq ft family-owned Nisa store on Victory Avenue in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. The store, modelled on Nisa’s Store of the Future concept, has been zoned according to missions, such as meal for tonight, top-up, treat, CTN and food to go. Just over a year post-refit, the store – which claimed the Excellence in Impulse Award at the Convenience Retail Awards – is turning over more than £44,000 a week with sales up 22% year on year.
WINNER
Excellence in Impulse
Nisa Whittlesey claimed the 2015 Convenience Retail Award for Excellence in Impulse.
Awards sponsor Mars Chocolate UK said it loved Nisa Whittlesey’s use of zoning and different meal deals at different times of the day. It was also captivated by the store’s innovative ‘me deals’ fixture which combines magazines with confectionery and alcohol.
Food to go
A quality food-to-go offer is one of the store’s cornerstones.
The offer is served from a purpose-built bar area. Fresh filled baguettes are made in store each morning, or customers can choose their own fillings and have baguettes made to order. More than 100 are sold each day.
The counter also features a hot breakfast, lunch and dinner to go offer which includes burgers and chicken fillets at lunch, and pizzas for dinner.
Fresh and chilled foods
The refit included a huge investment in chilled with the section expanding from six bays to nine.
Coloured LED lamps also help to make fresh fruit and veg, chilled meats and baked goods appear more vivid.
Freshness and quality is maintained by the store moving from two deliveries a week to six.
Orders placed by 10pm each night arrive by 10am the next day, creating improved availability and cash flow. The store also no longer needs a stock room.
Innovation
Digital media screens greet customers outside the store, within the aisles and around the counter area. They showcase offers, services and community engagement activities.
The store also offers free wifi in store which requires customers to login using facebook/twitter. This captures their demographic data, such as age, sex and where they are from.
Even if a customer doesn’t log onto the instore wifi, the routers triangulate movements of wifi-on devices giving us some useful heat mapping of customer movements within store allowing Jamie and Anish to track customer paths and where they should target promotions.
Mission management
The treating mission is given a dedicated fixture, including ‘me deals’ combining magazines, confectionery and alcohol.
The range has been carefully worked out by identifying the main missions first, then location and category space.
A particularly strong opportunity in top-up and meal solutions has been identified.
The store has been made easier for shoppers to navigate thanks to wider aisles which also make shopping by mission simpler.
Community and charity
The store has launched an initiative in partnership with Your Cash to donate 2p to charity each time a customer uses the free cash machine.
The brothers are both heavily engaged with the local community and work closely with all three local schools to support events.
The store also donates funds to a range of local good causes via Nisa’s Making a Difference Locally scheme.
Shoppers can vote by token, or via a newly installed Samsung tablet, as to which local charity the store should support.
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