Conor McKibbin’s steady hand has seen the family’s retail interests in County Down steadily mature over the last decade or so. This month, we take a look at the smaller of their two stores in the village of Dundrum – and discover that the next step for the business involves an intriguing home-made ice-cream franchise…

For Conor McKibbin, who trained as a solicitor after leaving school, a career in the retail trade must once have seemed very unlikely – yet for the last 10 years or so, he’s been the driving force behind the family’s convenience stores in Dundrum and Loughinisland.

Conor became involved in the business around 1999 when his brother, Ronan, who was looking after the 3,500 sq. ft. Loughinisland Spar store, decided that the wanted to see something of the world.

But it’s the family’s more modest Dundrum Vivo outlet which Store Focus will be looking at this month. Conor took on that site in 2005 when it comprised a small garage and forecourt operation with no retail element at all. An investment of more than £1m was immediately made on the site, knocking down the garage and replacing it with an 1,800 sq. ft. Vivo store, although the Go forecourt operation was retained.

At present, this modern store is a modest, general purpose convenience outlet on Main Street, Dundrum featuring a small food-to-go offering and an ATM and including a busy Post Office.

Initially, the Dundrum outlet, which predominately serves a settled local community, was configured along similar lines to the store in Loughinisland, which serves a busy transient customer base, and Conor admits that it took a little time to get the formula right:

“Basically, we spent a couple of years experimenting in Dundrum until we thought we’d found the format which we believed worked best with the customers,” he said. “Then, in November last year, we totally re-laid the shop, taking out the elements which we found were under-performing. We also gave the place a face-lift, added extra signage and so on and we’ve seen growth as a result. I’d say we’re about seven per cent up since this was done.”

One of the features which Conor changed when the store was re-modelled was the food-to-go facility. Originally, he’d installed a large deli and hot food counter with a five metre serve-over but that decision was based on his experience at Loughinisland. In Dundrum, the counter proved to be labour intensive and not particularly popular with customers so in November, it was removed and replaced with a simple hot-hold cabinet.

“One of the challenges of running a retail operation like this is making sure that you tailor the business to customer requirements,” Conor told Ulster Grocer. “Previously, at our first store, which is a transient site, the customer requirements are different. We tried the same things in Dundrum, but we realised after a bit that they weren’t working and so we changed them.”

Development

The land-locked nature of the site in Dundrum means that there’s little scope for Connor to consider further physical expansion there. He has, however, just embarked on another intriguing business development initiative.

When the family took on the Loughinisland site in 1998, they inherited the Brennan’s home-made vanilla ice-cream business. Produced only in one flavour – vanilla – Brennan’s is well-known and extremely popular locally. Conor kept producing the ice-cream, eventually establishing it as a major part of the Loughinisland store’s offering. When the Dundrum Vivo opened in 2006, he began selling it there too and its popularity increased.

Now, Conor has developed the brand as a stand-alone franchise operation and intends to roll it out to other interested retailers:

“This is fine, Italian ice-cream and we’ve always found it to be very popular with our customers,” he explained. “We knew we could make this work as a franchise, we’ve finished developing the concept and now we’re ready to roll this opportunity out to any retailers who might be interested, in fact we’ll be opening our first franchised operation next month.”

Going forward, Conor says that his priorities have to be maintenance of the standards that have so far been achieved – and keeping an eye on the competition:

“I think that in Northern Ireland particularly, this is a very competitive sector. It operates to a very high standard and that means it can be tough. By the same token, it also means that you have to watch your competitor all the time to see what he’s doing and that keeps you sharp and focused. You’re continually stretched.”

Also, like many convenience retailers these days, Conor reports that business has remained fairly buoyant despite the downturn:

“I wouldn’t say that we’re recession-proof, but it’s true that we haven’t really suffered in the current climate,” he said. “Perhaps that’s because of the close relationship that we’ve maintained with the community around us.

“Obviously, we’re keen to see this continue and I think a big part of that for any business at the moment is to make sure that you control your costs. Henderson’s have always helped us a lot there in the past and, in fact, in 2008/9, they had a big focus on costs and growth promotion. As a result, we’ve invested in new technology and a marketing campaign and we’ve put time into training our staff, which I think is crucial.”

Looking towards the future for Dundrum, Conor says that within five years, he’d like to see the ice-cream franchising plan fully rolled-out and perhaps, another convenience store in the family’s portfolio – and while nowhere is ruled out when it comes to location, it’s likely to be in the local area for the sake of convenience.

This is only part of a full article. For full access you can SUBSCRIBE TO ULSTER GROCER MAGAZINE

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