Amit Patel Go Local Extra

Go Local Sandiacre in Nottingham has amassed an incredible 8.5m likes on TikTok and is also followed by thousands upon thousands of people on the video platform, as well as on Instagram, Facebook Youtube.

“Our social media is pretty hot,” grins owner Amit Patel. “People travel to the store to come and get the latest products.”

It all started during the pandemic. “Through lockdown, we turned our shop into a lock up where we almost just went dark all day, working just on deliveries,” he explains. “I took my slush machine home and made cocktails for the family. I put a couple of videos and pictures up on Facebook and my customers saw it and they wanted me to bring it to the store, so I ran with it.” 

An energy drinks fan who loves experimenting with flavours, Amit began posting videos of energy drinks-based slush creations. He sourced a special can opener that removes the tops of the cans, meaning that the contents can be emptied into a slush machine and the empty can can then be filled with slush, making for cool visuals and a branded drinks holder.

He wasn’t an overnight success online, but Amit almost immediately sensed the potential of posting slush clips on social media. “When I first started doing it, I did it because I was bored,” he concedes. “And I was competing with other retailers that had bigger followings than me.

“I was posting two or three times a day, five times a day occasionally, and even going live to push it because I just knew that there was something there.”

The audio on a social media clip is almost as important as the video footage itself, he notes. “The music is huge, huge, huge,” says Amit. “I found that out very quick. I am an emo at heart, most of my followers are goth, emo or gay, and they listen to a very specific type of music, bands like Blink-182 and Linkin Park.”

He claims that online fans often visit the store in person. “You can tell when someone comes to the counter with a Blink 182 T-shirt on or a Paramore T-shirt on and they pick up a [Monster] Monarch. They are so brand loyal, there’s a link, an affiliation there.”

He adds that a customer came in last year and purchased £100 worth of energy drinks having seen the store’s generous range online.

Customers come to the store in their droves to try out Amit’s latest slush concoctions, but he is careful to still offer value. “We haven’t overpriced anything, the Monster slush is £3 and everything else is £2.50. And one cup, one size. It’s just so much easier in terms of managing cups and lids.”

Amit claims that store sales have doubled since he started his slush social media campaign. And he’s now found another way to grow sales.

“We’ve launched our own TikTok shop off the back of it,” he says. “We started it in October last year, we were doing maybe £100 a week, mostly energy drinks cans. It started off with Monsters and then other energy drinks came in … then chocolate bars came in, and now I just add everything new that comes along.”

Initially, he was selling products individually, but was getting fed up with the time spent packing everything, so his wife suggested selling boxes’ worth of goods instead. “Now it’s exploded and now we’ve expanded to boxes of all chocolate bars, crisps and cases of energy drinks, and it generates a very good revenue,” he says, noting that he sold 500 boxes of McVitie’s Gold Billions Wafer bars in 19 days. In fact, his TikTok shop sales have crossed over £4,000 a week.

He continues to create regular content for his social channels. “Now that we’ve got that following, it’s just a case of keeping going,” he says.

“I create one post every day and then I’ll use that same post across all of the platforms, so that’s Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and even YouTube, because there are people that don’t have every platform, but they’re still looking for these certain things. And it doesn’t cost you any extra to do it.”

Retailers looking to get involved don’t need any fancy kit. “These posts aren’t high quality,” he says. “They’re filmed on an iPhone 12 that I just use to make videos. It’s not high end stuff.”

@patshopkeepa GONSTER HAS STARTED TO TREND!! Been making these evey st patricks day for the pst few years! #gonster#monsterenergy#guinness#drink#viral#energydrink#beer♬ Naive - Walwin

Time spent making the content is minimal, he states. “It takes between 10 and 15 minutes to film and then from that video I will chop it up and turn it into two or three videos with editing,” he says. “I use TikTok to find new sounds and new songs, and then I add them to my own Spotify afterwards. But if I find something that I like or a really catchy tune that suits this purpose, then I’ll save it and create a draft.”

In addition to store sales and TikTok Shop, Amit is also gifted vouchers for sharing his videos.

“We did a video where I mixed a Guinness with Monster, and I called it Gonster, and it went viral,” he recalls. “I gave a site permission to use it. They got 10 million views out of it, so they sent me a £100 KFC voucher.”

Although his slush and the associated social content is extremely popular, Amit claims that he isn’t in it for the money. “I just make them to make people smile,” he says. “I make them because I enjoy making them. It’s playing with the sounds and playing with different angles and stuff. For me it’s just a game.”

And despite his online success, Amit remains relatively unknown. “I don’t use my face in the videos,” he says. “I haven’t got the face for it, nor do I have the confidence for it. So I don’t get in front of the camera very often,” he say. “I can walk into a room and no one knows who I am, and I’m quite comfortable and happy with that. I don’t want to be that guy that goes into a room and then everyone’s bugging them.

“No one knows what I look like outside of my little town that I’ve grown up in, but everyone knows my Facebook and everyone knows the shop.”

Check out the latest episode of the Convenience Mix podcast which discusses social media and retailers can get online.