For the first of this month’s retailer profiles, Kathy Jensen drove through (and over) the heart of the beautiful Sperrins on a gloriously sunny Easter Tuesday to meet up with Pauline Cooper, who owns the SPAR store in the pretty village of Eglinton, just outside Derry.

Born in the Waterside in Derry, Pauline Cooper travelled widely for many years before returning to her home county and settling in Eglinton 16 years ago to be amongst family and friends. She initially took a job in a home bakery in the village, but soon applied for the manager’s position at the local Nisa store, which was then owned by Eammon Gee. “I had no experience of running a convenience store, but I managed to secure the position and ‘winged’ it for the first year while I learned the ropes. However, Eammon was an excellent teacher and I learned a great deal from him, which has held me in good stead ever since,” said Pauline. As it stands, Pauline managed the store in Eglinton for eight years and when Eammon, who had five stores in the Derry area, decided to downsize his business a bit, he offered the shop to Pauline and she has owned and run the business now for the past six years.

“During the time I was managing the store, Eammon joined Musgrave Retail Partners and the store had been converted from Nisa to Centra, with whom I remained for the first four years after I bought the business. However, two years ago I converted to the SPAR symbol when Henderson Group offered me a really excellent package to help me grow the business,” said Pauline.

EXCELLENT TRADING PARTNER

“In actual fact, the store has returned to it’s roots, as it was a SPAR for many years under its orginal owner, Gerry Peoples. “I also really like
Henderson’s ordering and delivery schedule, especially for chilled food, which I can now order and have delivered every day instead of every other day, which cuts down on wastage,” continued Pauline. “Their HORIS IT system is also excellent and very user-friendly, while the continual back-up support available from the whole team has been really superb.

“I would also have to say that, as a woman in business, I find the whole Henderson set-up very female-friendly, as there are a lot of women on the team at Henderson Wholesale as well as a quite a few women retailers in the group with whom I enjoy meeting and interacting and sharing our knowledge and experience. Overall, the move to Hendersons has proven very positive, with sales growing at around 12 per cent year-on-year.

“In the current economic climate, everyone is finding their finances a bit stretched, as the banks are becoming less willing to offer or extend
credit,” added Pauline. “However, Hendersons have again proven an excellent trading partner by being more flexible on payment terms to give us the leeway to maintain our cash flow and enabling us to continue to invest in the business.”

POST OFFICE BOOST

SPAR Eglinton is around 1,500 sq. ft in size and includes the village Post Office in-store. “I got the opportunity to take over Eglinton Post Office in 2006 and, as I couldn’t extend the building, had a lot of reorganisation to do in-store to accommodate the new service, but it has worked well and the Post Office is an excellent footfall builder. Within the first year of having it, I won the Golden Ticket Award from the Post Office Network for Outstanding Customer Service, an honour that is doubly pleasing considering I was completely new to the business and still very much on a steep learning curve of all that is involved it.

“The Post Office is now planning to extend the services offered by its network, which will include a greater range of banking facilities, which I
think that will be a popular move with our customers. Since the credit crunch and the crisis in the traditional banking world, we have notice an upturn in Post Office business, as people seem to have lost confidence in the banks.”

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