Twelve months ago, in the middle of the pandemic, Mandeep Singh and his brothers, Bal and Vrinder, took the plunge and ripped out his store from floor to ceiling, to create Premier’s new store of the future.
It was a bold move – and costly, with an investment of £400,000 in total – but in 10 months, Singh’s Premier’s refit has paid for itself.
Weekly sales have shot up from £35,000 to an average of £65,000. The shop now includes a Refresh@Premier drinks station, including eight hot and cold self-serve drinks machines, an extended fresh and chilled section, a ‘beer cave’, a focus on multipacks, increased vapes and US confectionery, and a delivery operation that is emptying the shelves almost faster than they can fill them.
“We’ve made use of every bit of space and we’re making money from every angle,” says Mandeep Singh.
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Martyn Parkinson, sales director – retail at Booker, says: “The £400,000 investment is a colossal amount of money, but in this business, it pays back,” says “With rising costs, you’ve got to get the margin. Mandeep’s gone from 22% to 28% and we’re going to get him to 30%.”
The shop has been designed in a modular way, so other retailers can “take elements of it” for their own stores rather than commit to a full refit, Martyn says.
Mandeep has been inundated with retailers from across the UK, checking out the store, with retailers with varying shop sizes implementing changes as a result. “We’ve taken elements of this store and put it in a 580sq ft store,” Martyn says, emphasising that shop size shouldn’t be a barrier to innovation.
Despite adding £30,000 to weekly sales, the brothers aren’t standing still. “We’re not settling on that,” Mandeep says. “We’re looking at where we get the next £5,000 from.” betterRetailing took a tour around Singh’s Premier to see what other retailers can take away from it.
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