Mo Razzaq has reached opening day in the Family Shopper project. He has achieved this by having a great team to bring this about. On the evening before opening day Mo and his wife Roxy held a party in the shop to thank every one who play a part in making his vision become a reality.

A key partner in delivering the new store has been Booker and they have been on hand from the conception of the idea to opening day. There were 10 members of their team from  head office, the region and local branch.

For Mo and his store supervisor, Mandy opening day started at 6.30 am and the other members of his opening day team had all arrived by 8.30 am along with half a dozen people from Booker. As with all new store openings there were plenty of last minute things to do like the bake off, checking that all the products had shelf edge labels, displaying the morning goods that arrived this morning and making sure that the store was ready for customers.

At 10 am there was a crowd of people waiting to come into their new shop and after Roxy cut the ribbon the shop quickly filled with customers wanting to discover what is on offer. It quickly became clear that one of the big sellers was 2lt Iru Bru on offer at the remarkably low price of 74p. The 1.5lt EuroShopper milk was also a popular buy.

As Mo’s Family Shopper is catering for a Scottish customer base there are a significant number of local products such as Lorne Sausage, Bridies, Paris Buns, and Imperial Biscuits.

The new employees that Mo has recruited for the store are clearly already an asset to his business. They are all from the local community and it is obvious that they know many of the customers coming in to the store on opening day. It looks like they will be great ambassadors for this new business.

Booker’s Retail Sales Director, Steve Fox was on hand for much of the first day of trading in what is the 3rd Family Shopper store and he said:

“Mo, his wife Roxy and their team have delivered a wonderful shopping experience to the community in High Blantyre. It has been fantastic working in partnership with Mo and the result is here to see. The proof has been in the reaction of the customers and the comments that they have made.”

The best comment that I heard was made by Mrs Rose Bailey “Mo’s new store is great, it will save me going to Asda!”

Derek Ralton, the Booker Retail Development Manager who has worked with Mo on this project said that a customer commented to him that looking at some of the prices the Family Shopper is cheaper than Asda!