‘Home delivery is now 60% of my business’

Working with Snappy Shopper, Dundee retailer Umayr Asif was one of the first retailers in the UK to introduce a home delivery service – and he has been blazing a trail ever since.

Home delivery is the biggest single-solution opportunity available to local retailers in Scotland today. Of that there is little doubt. Can you think of anything else you can implement in virtually any store in a matter of days that could easily add thousands of pounds to your weekly turnover and, if you do it well, could ultimately become the biggest single part of your business?

One of the first retailers in the UK to understand the potential of home delivery was Umayr Asif, who owns and runs the Premier Nethergate Food Wine Plus store in Dundee. He was one of the very first retailers to start using Snappy Shopper, back when the home delivery giant was little more than a start-up.

Despite scepticism from many at the time around whether home delivery had a place in local retailing, Umayr immediately saw and understood the potential – and now, home delivery sales outstrip store sales. That’s one of the reasons he is SLR’s reigning Home Delivery Retailer of the Year.

“We do around 1,500 deliveries most weeks and have a fleet of 15 vehicles, including some new electric vans,” explains Umayr. “Home delivery is now 60% of my business.”

Average basket spend is £27 and the store charges £2.95 per delivery, delivering all over Dundee. On a typical week, the store will do almost £40k a week on home delivery sales. Not bad for a small 1,500sq ft store.

Unsurprisingly, Umayr takes home delivery very seriously, describing it as “his main focus”.

He markets the service very heavily using social media, leaflet drops, loyalty schemes, incentives such as free delivery or free gifts, in-store POS, liveried vehicles and more.

And that’s on top of the marketing and promotions that Snappy Shopper itself runs.

Over the last year Umayr has worked hard at growing the range he makes available for home delivery. “Range is the way forward,” he explains. “We offer 7,000 lines now, many of which you can’t buy in-store. We offer lots of big multipacks, for instance, which are too bulky for the store. The stock comes into the large storage space in the store and goes straight back out for delivery. It never touches the shopfloor.”

“Snappy Shopper is a fantastic brand and a great model,” he says. “They were the first company to understand home delivery and bring it to local retailers in a way that suits the specific needs of local retailers. I would recommend them to any retailer looking to really grow their business with home delivery.”