The rain failed to dampen morale as retailers poured their efforts into ensuring locals celebrated The King’s Coronation in style - and they were rewarded with a sea of smiles and soaring sales to boot.
St John’s Budgens of Kenilworth in Warwickshire saw a handsome sales increase of around 35% on the day of the Coronation and hundreds of customers gathered outside to attend a rainy, but resplendent street party organised by owner Sid Sidhu and his team.
Having invested £250 to ensure he had the right permits in place to secure a road closure on the 6th, in addition to utilising a council-approved traffic management company, changing the day of the party to dodge the drizzle wasn’t an option.
But despite the miserable weather, everyone went out of their way to celebrate with prizes awarded to best dressed adult, child and even house (see main image), as well as a pick a duck charity competition, BBQ, beer, party food and a cake gifted from the Kenilworth mayor.
Sadly, the rain meant high fresh food wastage. “You would have a huge increase in sales if the weather was nice, so we lost more stock than we typically would because we obviously ordered in advance just to anticipate sales,” he said.
Nevertheless, Sid remained upbeat, noting that the main goal was to host a community get together. “We genuinely thought that the rain would kill it, but actually, more and more people kept coming … everyone was over the moon, they thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Meanwhile, Anita Nye saw an incredible 25% uplift at Eldred Drive Premier store in Orpington.
Royal fan Anita decked out the store with Coronation memorabilia, including bunting, giant Union Jack flags and a lifesize cutout of King Charles. She also made up boxes of scones, cream and jam, which she sold at £2.50. “We did it last year for the Platinum Jubilee and it sold really well,” she says. “We also give them to a few of our senior customers for free.”
Although the store’s location on a bus route amidst a busy parade of shops meant that a community event wasn’t possible, she claimed that the store was hugely busy. “It was just mad all weekend!” she said. “People were buying alcohol and picnic bits.”
She claimed that the 1,200sq ft store’s average weekly sales stood at £40,000 without services. “It’s nudged up to £41/42,000 over the last three months and last week we were £140 off £50,000!”
Amrit Singh of H & Jodie’s in Walsall, West Midlands, also racked up some impressive sales, largely thanks to the shop’s delivery service. “We’ve seen a larger increase in online orders and deliveries - that’s where our major gains were, we just made sure that we had all the key items - soft drinks, beer packs, crisps and confectionery - well stocked up, so we weren’t falling behind in that aspect. I’d say we had a nice 10-15% increase across the whole bank holiday weekend.”
In addition, the team braved the showers to put on a party for locals. “The weather wasn’t on our side,” he said. “Other than that, it was good. The community look to us to show them that we’re engaged, so it’s imperative for us to keep that tradition alive.”
As well as hosting his own event, Amrit applied to the Making A Difference Locally (MADL) charity earlier in the year for £500 worth of funding each for 14 local organisations. “I couldn’t even tell you how many hundreds of people would have celebrated off the back of the funding that we’d raised,” he said, adding that he distributed H & Jodie’s branded bunting to all the different organisations to unify the celebrations.
“It was across all different ethnicities and backgrounds - there was the bowling club, the Townswomen’s Guild, Walsall Manor Hospital - loads of different organisations that were all celebrating in their own way.
“So even though our party outside wasn’t necessarily as big as it normally is, we more than contributed towards the king’s coronation [celebrations] through various organisations that we’ve raised funds for. It was like distributing joy really!”
The latest round of MADL’s Heart of the Community initiative saw 147 charities and good causes benefit from donations totalling £73,500, with retailers helping to organise events such as street parties and family fun days.
No comments yet