Ask not what you can do for your rep, but what your rep can do for you. There is not a square metre in Kully and Sandy’s Nisa store which is not brightened up by an attention grabbing sign, display unit or shelf barker. And Kully is not shy in challenging reps to make her sales soar.

She explains: “I say to them, ‘What can you do for me?’. They have to work hard for my money and some of them have been promoted off the back of what they have achieved in our store.”

The facts

Location: Heathfield, Nottingham

Trading since: May 2011

Staff: 12

Hours: 6am-11pm Monday to Sunday

Size: 1,800sq ft

Style: A neighbourhood convenience store with parking spaces set on a
busy road. Has a full grocery and food to go offering.

Not including PayPoint, weekly sales at the shop in Nottingham are £29,000, and it’s only three years since they started trading.

Kully and Sandy are inspirational retailers and they make sure there is always a ‘buzz’ in the shop – whether they are offering foods of the world for the World Cup, or bringing an exciting product launch to life.

When Cadbury Dairy Milk Ritz and Lu were unveiled earlier this year Kully got a big hod of the products to display at the front of the shop.

“It got customers talking about whether they preferred sweet or savoury,” she says.

Rekorderlig and Carling both sent in samples for Father’s Day to be sold as gifts, which proved a hit with customers.

Top tips

1. Train staff to upsell:

Sandy and Kully operate two work shifts a day and two staff per shift. If each staff member sells 10 extra £1 items per shift, that adds up to nearly £15,000 of extra sales per year.

2. Have a different theme every month:

During the World Cup they offered ‘foods of the world’ – with meals from the different countries in the tournament, signposted by countries’ flags.

3. Put baskets in the back, as well as the front, of your shop:

Some customers don’t pick up a basket when they come in but by the time they get to the back of the shop their arms are full.

“Father’s Day is a real missed opportunity,” says Sandy. “You’ve got to have a monthly theme. You’ve got to keep your store fresh.”

Among their team of 12, Kully and Sandy have appointed two supervisors, with whom they have regular one-to-one feedback sessions, and who have been given targets of increasing sales and profits. By having a team structure and giving individual staff responsibility for specific sections, they give everyone a stake in the shop.

Each member of the team is asked to bring something to the business. Their daughter is in charge of online and social media. When chickens are being roasted on site, their Lithuanian employees take charge and prepare the birds with spices according to a traditional recipe – resulting in mouth-watering sales.

Kully makes sure to range the fajita kits next to the chickens, too – because she wants to offer customers meal solutions.

Apart from tobacco, drinks – both soft and alcoholic – are their top selling lines. To drive customer interest, Kully and Sandy put on beer festivals and wine tastings. E&J Gallo supports them with wine samples and this encourages customers to try new products. But there is still room for suppliers to improve their PoS.

What use is a tasting note that says a wine has ‘vanilla notes’, asks Sandy, when really we want a sign that says ‘This tastes great with steak’.

“It needs to be easier for the shopper.”

Nisa’s Epositive EPoS system has been a vital tool in ironing out inefficiencies in the business, and every couple of months or so they identify the 100 slowest moving lines in order to delist them.

“I used to be a bit of a waffler, but now I talk in specifics because we have the data,” says Sandy.

The next step in their business will be to expand the store and introduce click and collect for customers.