Sharon Kane, award-winning c-store manager at Spar Cullybackey, part of the Henderson Retail group in Northern Ireland, on summer trading and investing in people.
We have finally come to the end of the chocolate-selling season. All the eggs have gone and the wrapped gifts proved even more popular than last year so it turned out to be a successful Easter for us all.
Despite the huge amount of chocolate we sold recently our confectionery sales are still quite good. You would imagine that people would be fed up looking at chocolate by now, but maybe we just live in a world full of chocoholics?
Time seems to be flying by. The seasons are changing so fast and April has been a great month for us. Weather wise it’s been fantastic and the good weather always brings great sales.
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Spar Cullybackey: Investors in People accreditation
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Sharon Kane: getting ready for summer |
To prepare for this we replaced our impulse freezers with two brand new units, enabling us to increase our impulse and take-home range.
The seasonal section has also been re-merchandised with every barbecue product customers will ever need. Hopefully, we’ll get the weather to enjoy it.
We also have a great range of reasonably priced sun chairs and loungers, but maybe it is just a wee bit early for them? On the other hand, we did actually sell two garden summer seats last week.
We received some good news this month. We were assessed for the Investors in People Accreditation and we have been approved. This is a great accolade for our shop and all our staff and I am incredibly proud to receive this recognition.
We are very keen on fund raising in our store and for our first big event of the year we decided to do something quite close to all our hearts.
We raised money for the Macmillan Cancer Nurses in memory of one of our wonderful members of staff, Carol Byrne, who passed away in February this year.
We held a “Wear your pyjamas to work day” and raised an incredible £4,800 in just two days. We are extremely grateful to all of our customers, who were incredibly generous. It just goes to show even in these difficult times people are still willing to give for such a worthwhile cause.