Fife-based Eros Retail has its sights on growing its business this year and is looking to expand its team and work with suppliers to drive sales.
by Liz Wells
Headed up by ambitious and well-known retailer Harris Aslam, Fife-based Eros Retail has a long history of growth and evolution, and Harris has set his sights on continuing to grow its business this year, backed by an expanded team and committed to working with suppliers to drive sales.
Eros opened one store in August, one in September, and one in November last year, and has another four sites that it is looking at opening by this May.
Harris is continuing to focus on store acquisitions and is interested in talking to existing independent retailers that are looking at selling, retiring, or moving on.
The retailer is open to all locations and demographics. Eros currently has a concentration of stores in Fife, Aberdeenshire, and one in Perth and Kinross. However, the stores it is set to open in the coming months are across the length and breadth of Scotland.
Harris says: “We’ve got stores in the middle of council estates, in village locations, and have operated high street stores before, so we are completely open in that regard.”
In terms of square footage, the retailer is looking for a minimum of 2,000sq ft sales area, because anything below that is usually a struggle to make it work, but Harry says he will look at smaller stores if they are doing the right numbers.
“For existing stores, they really need to be doing £20k a week plus, and if it’s not it’s fine as long as it has the potential to significantly grow the sales,” says Harris.
He adds: “There is a much higher demand for convenience stores, but we can move as quickly or as slowly as sellers want us to, we’ve got a confidential and discreet way of dealing with things as well. This allows us to perhaps work with sellers that wouldn’t otherwise be looking at going on the open market.”
In addition, the company opened a franchise store in December 2019, with a third party operating it, and wants to take the proposition to the market. “The reason we haven’t shouted about it is because it was a trial, but the feedback from that has gone very well,” says Harris.
“There have been quite a few learnings but on the whole Greens is a brand that is starting to become recognisable in Scotland and that is something we want to open up as quickly and swiftly as possible, while growing our company-owned estate.”
The retailer also has store managerial, store team, and head office positions available. “There is quite a lot going on, but we need to build up the team, to help take the business forward,” Harris says.
He adds: “Eros Retail is growing significantly, despite challenges to the sector, and is keen to continue to keep growing. We need to grow our team and would fully welcome anybody that is considering a career move, or starting off in retail in a management capacity at store level or head office level, to reach out and engage with us.”
The company is also looking to work with suppliers to collaboratively try and find ways to drive sales. Harry explains: “We’ve has a couple of years when we haven’t had many new supplier relations because everyone’s been focused on keeping toilet paper on the shelves.
“We’ve started to pick up conversation with manufacturers to see how we can work with them and drive individual category sales.”
To summarise, Harris says: “Eros stared trading in 2014 and at the time I made a few bold statements, and the growth absolutely came. There have been a lot of learnings in the process, so growth has been slightly slower than I would have liked it to be, but it’s still very healthy sustainable growth over the almost eight years we’ve been trading.
“We have been on a journey, we have achieved a lot, and there’s nothing to stop us looking at many, many, more sites. There isn’t an ideal number – it’s full steam ahead for us really.”
