Since the shop opened 3 years ago storage has been an ongoing problem. We have worked extremely hard to provide product lines to suit the needs of villagers but this has been hampered by the lack of adequate storage facilities. We have now had a commercial cold room installed at the rear of the shop, rather than relying on previous domestic fridges that weren’t fit for purpose. This provides significant additional storage capacity for chilled and chiller displayed goods (e.g. soft drinks) and will free up significant space elsewhere. It will enable us to keep more stock and It will also enable us to slightly increase our chilled products range as we won’t need everything out in the shop at once as we often do now.
We have supporting the Findon Garden Centre until they recently re-opened, enabling sales of their behalf in excess of £2,000 during May. Alongside their goods we have continued to sell our own, sourced by and looked after by Becky Fagan who will now return to being the sole provider of these going forward. We are happy to have been able to help FGC survive a very difficult time for them in our own small way.
We have decided to overhaul our greetings cards, partly driven by our primary supplier changing their operating model to our disadvantage and partly because we felt our range was too limited to appeal to the broad spectrum of tastes using the shop. The new card selection is excellent and hopefully we will be the shop of choice for local customers looking for cards!Having made a significant investment in the business to meet the needs of the community at large and going some way to future proofing our ability to do so, we sincerely hope that the community responds positively to this and post-covid continues to use the store as much as it has during the past few months. I am sure that many who have not typically used the shop before will have been impressed with the experience of doing so, both from an incredible product range and customer experience perspective.Jo O’Dell Committee vice chair.
Jo O’Dell Committee Vice-Chair.