“The challenge now is to retain as much business as possible,” says Hendersons’ Paddy Doody

When Neighbourhood Retailer speaks to Paddy Doody, Sales and Marketing Director, Hendersons, for our forthcoming digital issue, Northern Ireland is well into week 12 of the pandemic.

Now, as the country returns to a sense of normality, the Group is taking stock to strategize and plan the best path forward to continue serving communities across the province.

As lockdown measures relax and the general public gets back to work, a sense of normality is returning to Henderson stores giving the management team a chance to plan how they will take the stores into the ‘new normal’.

A positive is that Beer, Wines and Spirit sales have more than doubled in all stores that have an off licence. “I imagine sales will fall down to a much more normal level, but that level, I think, will be higher than it was before as we will maintain some of that business because people will take time to revert back to previous behaviours” he says.

“We have a lot of new customers, who are using us for the first time, and have had a great experience with us in-store in terms of range, value, service, and locality. “The challenge now is to retain as much business from this time as possible and the way we will do that is through great customer service and showing that you can get a good value range of products in a much smaller store.”

To read more of Neighbourhood Retailer’s interview with Paddy Doody, and to receive our forthcoming digital issue, click here.