For Charlotte Dant, the starting point for retail is simple: see the store through the customer’s eyes and work backwards from there.
That philosophy is at the heart of her 1,200 sq ft Morrisons Daily store in Alford, Lincolnshire, where she has focused on creating a shopping experience that is both commercially effective and genuinely enjoyable.
Dant’s approach is built around removing friction from the customer journey. Layout, product selection, food to go and merchandising are all considered from the perspective of what will make shoppers want to return. She places particular importance on the details that can easily be overlooked in convenience retail – cleanliness, availability, clear pricing, well-merchandised displays and fresh food that looks appetising.
The result, she says, is a store where her own standards and personality are visible throughout the business.
Choosing Morrisons Daily as her symbol partner has allowed Dant to combine the strength of a recognised national brand with what she describes as a deeply personalised, customer-first independent approach. The store has been trading for four months at the time of the nomination and is a single-site c-store operating from a high-street location.
But for Dant, the biggest lesson from her entrepreneurial journey has been that commercial success should not be the starting point. Instead, she argues that putting customers first creates the conditions for commercial success.
That has meant being prepared to question established ways of doing things rather than simply following a standard convenience-store blueprint. If a fixture interrupts the shopping flow, she changes it. If a product range does not meet customer needs, she reviews it. And if there is an opportunity to improve the shopping experience, she looks at how it can be delivered in a way that also benefits the business.
Her approach is therefore less about making one big intervention and more about continuously improving the details.
For Dant, the entrepreneurial challenge is balancing customer empathy with commercial reality. Her belief is that shoppers will choose a store not simply because it is convenient, but because they know they will receive a consistently high-quality experience.
That customer-first mindset has become the central principle behind her businesswoman journey – and the personality of the store itself.