Customers can’t get enough of Keystore More in Temple, Glasgow, after owner Jazz Lalli poured £200,000 into refitting the 1,470sq ft outlet.
The shopfit was carried out by Vertex, who refitted Jazz’s Renfrew store last year. Work started in mid-May and was completed by the end of the month, with the store only closing for five days throughout.
Six months on, and the results speak for themselves. “Shoppers have been loving it,” he says. “Sales are up 14% a week and we’ve just started with Snappy Shopper as well, so that’s adding extra sales on top.”
Lights, counter, action!
Jazz chose a stylish, black suspended ceiling with a mixture of different lighting styles.
The main shop has square edge-lit LED panels, while the counter area has a host of spotlights.
Grey slats of two different widths create a feature area above the tills, and the same pattern is mirrored on the front of the counter. “I remember from our last refit in 2019 that the counter area was a massive job with wires everywhere,” says Jazz. “It’s only five years old, so we just kept it and pinned slats on the front and it looks totally different!”
Jazz got rid of an aisle dedicated to news and mags and put them on a spinner on wheels near the counter instead. He says: “It maximised the space and didn’t affect sales.”
Time to chill
The star of the show is the new beer cave complete with smart halo lighting, which Jazz says has been the talk of the town.
“Deeper shelving allows for two cases of each beer, rather than three or four packs and constantly getting staff to refill it. Now, it’s low maintenance and always looking full.” The extra space has enabled him to expand his RTD range and to chill 12-packs of bottles.
Jazz concedes that his previous refrigeration was dated, so he invested in energy-efficient Arneg chillers with doors.
The dairy chiller has replaced the soft drinks chiller at the front of the store, while soft drinks are now at the back where there’s more room. “There are loads of new drinks coming out and I needed more space to display everything,” he says. “We’ve also extended the height of the chillers, which makes a huge difference; it was wasted space before.”
On the go
The Food To Go area is differentiated with pendant lighting and Jazz has invested in new ovens. “We changed to a Combitherm, which is larger and more practical and added a Merrychef. We do a lot of the morning rolls in the Combitherm – everything can be put on separate timers for links, bacon squares, black pudding etc. The Merrychef heats things really quickly – you can have a toastie ready in a minute.”
The contract was up on Jazz’s cash machine, which was seldom used because of the £1.65 withdrawal charge, so he dropped it in favour of drinks to go. The valuable space is now taken up with Hershey’s and Reese’s Freeze and Jolly Rancher machines, alongside Fanta Frozen.
Shopfront
Jazz ditched the bulk of the shop shutters, instead opting for steel plates across the windows. “I have one shutter for the main door and steel plates covered with graphics. It’s so much more secure and I don’t have the stress of the shutters getting stuck, plus the graphics look better day and night.”
