Sunday 1 April 2007

Closing Time...

I was really shocked to hear that a convenient store which I normally shop at is closing down. In fact, yesterday was their last day of trading after 29 years. It all started off as a butcher and then grown to a convenient shop which occupied two shops. I have no idea that it is going to shut down after 29 years. It signifies the time is changing and if we are not sensitive to customer's demand, the shop will have to shut.


I don't see the reason why it has to shut. I mean there are so many convenient shops around the area and it gives the particular shop a lot of pressure to maintain its profit margin. Personally, I think that the shop should not shut as they do sell a lot of fairtrade products which Somerfield, Tesco and Sainsburys lack of it in comparison to the size of their shops. I think that it is vital for us to buy fairtrade products. I do like fairtrade products as it taste better than non fairtrade products. I don't know why it taste better but it certainly does.


One good example will be a bar of chocolate. I do buy fairtrade chocolate bar and cadbury chocolate. When I compare the both, fairtrade chocolate taste better than cadbury chocolate. Well, I think that it takes a lot of guts and courage to maintain a store which is facing a stiff competition from bigger convenient store or supermarkets. However, I can understand why it shut its door after 29 years.


From my observation for the past three years, I do see that there were only two tills in the shop and only one till will be open all the time. The supervisor of the shop for the evening shift is not efficient in carrying out her duty as a supervisor. I don't see the fire in her eyes in doing her job well. She is always being slow in attending to the cashier's need to open another till to accomodate the influx of customers. That was before a competitor's store was build opposite the shop.


I think that the shop has been maintaining on a very laid back attitute. I only see that the manager and one or two staffs who are really working efficiently. Think about it. Nobody is going to wait for two to five minutes for a bar of chocolate! That is just not right. Customer should come first. In doing that, everyone would have to play a part in ensuring that the store will be able to maintain its existing customers and also to attract new customers. If staffs are only working to receive their salary, the store will shut. That is why I am not suprised that the shop shut its door after so many years. There is no unity among the staffs. They don't work as a team and they don't work efficiently. Well, I can see that they always take breaks and worst of all, I do see a woman supervisor working in the evenings chatting on her mobile phone while serving customers on every occasion I so happen to enter the shop to buy some grocery. That is bad service.


Tell me about it then. What do you expect when you provide bad service to customers? They will leave the shop then, right?

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