Following a massive investment by owner Mahmood Saleem, Ardeer Services in Stevenston has quadrupled in size, adding a second floor, Subway, ice-cream counter and car park. The results, particularly the personal touches, have been the talk of the town.
SPACE can be a problem for many convenience stores. It was certainly a problem for the Nisa Local at Ardeer Services in Stevenston – until recently it had a shop floor of just 750 sq ft, almost every inch of it piled high with stock.
Owner Mahmood Saleem had wanted to expand for a long time, but was constrained by the amount of land available at the site. Unable to persuade the local council to allow him to build out, he realised the only way was up.
Following a huge investment and years of planning, the old shop has now been bulldozed and replaced with a double-storey state-of-the-art building incorporating a 2,700 ft Nisa store and Subway, with kitchen, offices and storage.
The in-store range has tripled, with a massive expansion across chilled drinks, food and frozen. New products on offer include freshly-baked bread from Cuisine de France and Woody’s ice cream, on sale from a dedicated counter.
The location, on the main road to and from the A78, is very convenient for people travelling between the Three Towns of Stevenson, Saltcoats and Kilwinning. With Morrisons, Asda and another independent nearby, there is a lot of competition, but Mahmood isn’t too concerned about that. Open 24 hours, seven days a week, with a huge variety of products and a promise to match Morrisons on fuel price, he is confident in the site’s ability to attract new customers.
“The reason we wanted to spend so much money here is the potential in the location. So many people around here don’t have the time or the patience to go to Morrisons. It can take 25 minutes to get one item from Morrisons, but here it would only take five minutes. They can jump in and jump out.”
For people who might want to spend more time in store, 18 car-parking spaces have been created, with a new canopy covering those at the front. At every step, efforts have been made to ensure customers feel more comfortable while they’re shopping. When it comes to customer service, from opening doors for people to helping them load groceries into their car boot, staff are encouraged to go the extra mile.
“These are little touches, but they’re very important, especially for elderly customers,” said Mahmood. “They do more shopping here because they know we’ll help them. We want them to be well looked after. Supermarkets don’t do that.”
But what really seems to have captured customers’ imaginations are the old photographs displayed on the main wall.
“The locals are so impressed with what we’ve done,” said Mahmood. “We took old pictures of the town from the local library and people can spend hours in here looking at them, talking about the town. They’ve been calling their friends and family to come and see.
“I just thought it would be quite a boring wall if we didn’t do something with it. And people have been thrilled. I’ve had a few customers grab me outside and thank me for doing something good for Stevenston. We’ve also added some colourful lighting that looks really good in the night time. You can change the colours. You could have cool colours in summer, warm in winter, pink for Valentine’s Day, different events, so many different options.”
The grand opening of the new store was celebrated on Saturday, August 27, with a family fun day, including a ribbon-cutting ceremony carried out by long-time customer Tommy Lawson.
“That was a very busy day,” said Mahmood. “Everybody coming in was so happy. We dropped the fuel price 5p to get everyone in. It was queued all the way to the roundabout. 5p makes a hell of a difference. People just go crazy. Jet did us a favour with £500 free fuel for customers, AG Barr gave us a bike for the raffle and there were a lot of smaller prizes.”
In the weeks following the opening, sales have been going up all the time.
“I’ve seen a lot of new customers,” Mahmood said. “We have a new type of customer coming in, nicer cars are parking outside, middle-class people who might have felt uncomfortable getting their food shopping from a forecourt in the past. Parents are bringing their children here as a treat, to get an ice cream or sandwich.
“I wanted to be family-friendly and to attract younger customers. That’s one of the reasons we wanted to make it look different to other shops. Young people like to have something different. If some teenager has a girlfriend, he won’t take her on a date to Morrisons, but he might bring her here for an ice cream. In the evening, with the right lighting, it can look quite romantic.”
Staff numbers have doubled from 16 to 32 and for them too, the new Ardeer Services provides a better environment than it used to.
“Before, when staff had a break, they had to have their lunch or dinner at the counter. There was nowhere for them to go. If I had reps coming for a meeting, I would worry about more than one person showing up, because there was nowhere for them to stand.”
Now, staff can retreat to the rear kitchen on breaks, or head upstairs to their own break room with secured lockers. And Mahmood can hold meetings in his spacious first floor office with sea view.
“I actually miss the old shop because it was so easy to work it. Now everything’s so spread out and I’m running all the time, up and down, trying to find things. But the staff are very happy now. I think it’s a much better place to work than before.”
The upstairs office doubles as a stockroom for tobacco, which is dispensed through an automated gantry refilled by Mahmood himself.
Using their touch-screens at the counter, staff can request a pack and it is delivered to them through a chute. The vending system was designed and installed by Navarra Retail Systems.
Navarra’s owner, Eamonn de Valera, said: “Mahmood had a specific vision about what he wanted to achieve which posed interesting technical challenges for us to overcome. I believe his ideas were good and the end product works well.”
“It’s like a vending machine, designed to go through the tills,” he said. “You click on the icon and the pack you want drops down. It’s all integrated into the EPOS, so when something’s out of stock, it won’t let you complete the sale.
“Whenever I’ve got time I can restock it no problem. Each slot’s reserved and numbered for a different line. It’s also very secure.”
In so many ways, Ardeer Services is pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved in a forecourt service station and Mahmood is confident about its future.
“I think this will become an iconic building in the area,” he said. “People will notice it and talk about it. Anyone who drives past will remember this. That’s been the thinking behind a lot of what we’ve done. The old pictures – that was done to get people talking about the site to others. You will never ever hear people talk about their local newsagent or grocer to anyone. But they will talk about this.”
