Costcutter Brockley, situated in High St in UK, owner  Peter Patel honored with Independent Bakery Retailer Award in the Asian Trader Awards 2019. Peter Patel says about the single most profitable innovation he have made to his store over the past 12 months. “Introducing a dedicated chiller for vegan products has meant we’ve been able to significantly increase the range and reap the rewards, with weekly sales now at £2,000”. He describes about his best strategy for increasing footfall in his store. “Really getting under the skin of what existing shoppers want and crucially who else could be shopping with us. Once we have that, finding a point of difference and answering their needs”. He also describes two key challenges facing convenience and explain your plans for taking advantage. “1. Point of difference With two Sainsbury’s, a Co-op and independently owned convenience stores all within walking distance, we have had to work hard to create a point of difference. Using our shopper insights we have created an offering that is tailored to meet our shoppers’ needs, including the most comprehensive BWS and vegan offerings in the area. Not only do our sales prove that we’ve created a point of difference, but the fact that our nearest competitor, Sainsbury’s, is now directing customers to our vegan range, is the icing on the cake. 2. Shopping environment All the research showed that our local shoppers wanted smaller batched produced products, whether that was BWS or vegan products. They’re also keen to top-up shop regularly and want healthy, easy dinners with fresh ingredients and that’s exactly what we’ve delivered. We’ve also tried to look after our younger visitors and have introduced small shopping trolleys for children, which have been a big hit. The results speak for themselves. Basket spend has grown from £5.30 to £6.66 and sales have grown from £26,000 to...

best-one Poets Corner and best-one Plessey News, situated in Housing Estate in UK, owner Shad Saleem honored with Spirit of the Community Award in the Asian Trader Awards 2019. Shad Saleem says how a store-owner can become the spirit of the community. “For me, it’s all about being woven into the community; a part of the fabric. A community can be diverse – a mix of people of different ages, jobs, families and it’s about connecting with all of them in some way. I think one of the ways I’ve managed to do this is I’ve never said no to ANY community support asked of me in the last 20 years”. He says about the initiatives that he developed to benefit his local community in the last 12 months. “Within our community there are children that come from families below the national poverty threshold who can’t always afford food and are being sent to school hungry. Through my involvement with The Rotary Club of Blyth we worked together with Malvin’s Close Primary Academy, where we created a Breakfast Club enabling 30 children to be given a proper breakfast and ‘set them up’ for the day. The school fed back that there is a close correlation between the success of children within the classroom and being well fed. We’re looking at expanding this initiative and I’d like to support this financially through the shops (my personal ambition is to ensure that no child in Blyth goes to school hungry)”. He describes two key challenges facing Convenience and his plans for taking advantage. “Blyth is inundated with retail shops; we have ALDI, Lidl, ASDA and many convenience stores. The challenge is to differentiate ourselves from everyone else. One way we do this is through stocking local products. Our eggs are delivered fresh daily from family-run Lintz Hall Eggs, our milk and...

Premier Eldred Drive Stores, situated in Housing Estate in UK, owner Anita Nye honered with Spirit of the community Award in the Asian Trader Awards 2019. Anita Nye says that it is a  community shop that really keeps everyone at the heart of everything. They are members of the community and have been for many years so they want to play our part in whatever they can to help improve the area they live and work in. They have introduced a couple of initiatives to ‘do out bit’ to tackle food poverty and childhood obesity. They have introduced a very popular loyalty card scheme. People get a stamp every time they spend £10 on groceries. They chose to keep the amount that triggers a stamp relatively low and shoppers just need to collect 10 stamps to get £5 off their shopping. It’s unbelievably popular and lots of people save their full cards til Christmas so that they can get some really good money off their festive shopping.    Anita describes about key challenges facing Convenience and explains plans for taking advantage. Keeping prices down whilst retaining good profit margins. Ever changing demands of customers. People often shop around for the best prices, they stick to PMP where they can as that’s what their customers...

MJ’s Premier Store, situated in  Housing Estate, UK, owner Justin Whittaker honored with Food to go Retailer Award in the Asian Trader Awards 2019. Justin Whittaker says “We identified that whilst our food-to-go offer was great for breakfast and dinner – from 4pm we were quiet. Yet takeaways are thriving in the evening. We were missing a trick. We also identified that we were missing ‘millennials’ from our customer base. So we introduced the desserts bar to complement the rest of our food-to-go offering by giving an offer for the evening trade and something that would appeal to the younger generation – waffles, crepes and premium ice cream! The desserts bar alone takes £4,000 a week with a profit margin of +50%. We’ve introduced exclusive offers, such as Waffle Wednesday (buy one get one free) or Monday 2 pizzas and Pepsi for £10. And we’ve developed an ordering app to maximise the appeal of the dessert bar, appeal to our younger more ‘tech-savvy’ younger generation and to future proof our business. Customers can click onto a Facebook post to ‘shop now’. We’re doing £1,500 business with the app and more importantly, it’s all on high profit lines. Add to that our food-to-go zone with coffee machine, doughnut rack, hot cabinet, noodle snacks, grab and go chiller, which includes sandwiches and meal deals. There’s something for everyone throughout the day. Evenings are now our busiest time of day for food to go! We already had a good broad food-to-go offering to cover most requirements for grab-and-go. Our food-to-go zone includes a coffee machine, doughnut rack, hot cabinet, noodle snacks, F’real milkshakes and a chiller (with sandwiches, crisps and soft drinks). Now that we’ve introduced the desserts bar we’ve got an offer that is really popular with the younger generation and also for evening trade. That’s what was missing before. The...

Bollywood actress Samikssha Batnagar bagged best actress award at 12th Global Film Festival Noida for critically acclaimed film Hamne Gandhi Ko Maar Diya. The Hindi movie produced and directed by Naeem A. Siddqui. It was released on 2 March 2018 all over India, this movie is inspired by non-violence movements taken by Mahatma Gandhi (Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi) during his struggle for Independent India from 1915 to 1947. The excitement and enthusiasm of young film makers from all over India and abroad created a new energy in the 12th Global Film Festival Noida at Marwah Studios, Noida Film City. The festival was inaugurated by Ambassador of Bosnia Mohammed Cengic, joint secretary of state committee of the Uzbekistan Tumurbek Anvabekov, Film Director Rahul Ravail, Film Director Ranjit Kapor, Writer & Dancer Raghunath Manet, Director Usha Deshpandey, TV Actress Samikssha Batnagar, Vivek Paul, Miss Ukraine Darina Gordienko, Mohamed Ali Rabbani & President Marwah Studios Sandeep Marwah.   Samikssha Batnagar said, “I dedicate this award to all my fans who always supports me. I am glad to receive this award. I would like to thanks organizer of 12th Global Film Festival Noida for this...