Even the best run stores can benefit from the expertise of the FWD Take Home Blueprint, and this proved to be the case with the New Kwiki Mart, at Southsea, in Portsmouth, experiencing a 33% increase in sales and rising.
Owner Panchalingam Aranan, known as Jay to his customers, was nominated for a Blueprint makeover by business development executive for Bestway, Jenny Brown.
Jenny explained: "We have been working with the Blueprint on stores that could potentially benefit from the range advice and merchandising that the Blueprint offers, and I thought the New Kwiki Mart would be an ideal candidate.
"It is a sizeable 24-hour store, with an impressive range of food and groceries, but even this is overshadowed by the off licence department with its 8m chiller stacked with beers, ciders, wines and ARTDs and over 3m allocated to spirits," said Jenny.
The Blueprint team found that while it was well-stocked, Jay was missing many of the core brands featured on the Blueprint planograms. For example introducing Blossom Hill and also improving his offering on the premium end brands too.
Following the implementation of the Blueprint, Jay has seen his off licence sales soar by more than 33%, and sales are continuing to increase as the weeks progress.
Jay said: "I am over the moon with the sales increase since the Blueprint was implemented. It has also lifted the presentation of my store and my staff now take pride in maintaining the fixtures and stock levels and keeping the high standard that the Blueprint has set.
"I couldn't have imagined that the Blueprint could help increase my sales by so much, and I am now considering increasing my wine fixtures by a further 2m to double the amount of facings on all my major sellers."
The Blueprint returned to the store a few weeks later to conduct a wine tasting to help boost and promote Jay's impressive range of wines available.
With help from the Blueprint, Jay selected a number of different brands combining recommendations from the Blueprint planogram with wines on offer and own label brands.
Jay said: "As the store is located on a busy main road, my customer base is wide and varies from young professionals, to local residents and students. The wine tasting is perfect to help tap into the different customer tastes and get them try something other than their usual tipple."
The success of the evening was reflected in Jay's tills also. He sold an additional 10 cases of wine of top of his usual evening's wine sales.
Jay said: "I am sure that thanks to the Blueprint we have converted a number of my customers to new and different wines and that I will be reaping the benefits of this evening and the Blueprint's initial hard work for a long time to come."
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