Cornish retailer completes 10,000 home deliveries

A Cornwall based retailer has recently achieved the milestone of making 10,000th home deliveries since the launch of the service during the first Covid-19 lockdown in March last year.

Gary Batten, who operates Nisa Local fascia stores in Nanpean and St Stephen, offers the service from both stores, which has become a lifeline for local people who have struggled to secure slots with larger supermarket chains.

“We had never done deliveries at all in the six years since we have had the stores but we thought we needed to support the local community and it really took off because of the number of people self-isolating and shielding during the first lockdown.” Gary said.

The service began with a phone in option, requiring shoppers to call the store to place the order. The stores now use the Appy Shop mobile app, but Gary says he has kept the simple phone option which is used by a small number of regular customers who are not comfortable with technology or don’t have internet access.

“We get quite different customers from the app as compared to those we cater for over the phone. And many of the Appy Shop customers are new to us who we may not see again whilst our shoppers who call in their orders are loyal and regular customers,” he said.

At the peak the business was making around 100 deliveries every day and while that has reduced the service is still well used across both stores with a dedicated driver employed to make all the drops.

“We are delivering to about 30 customers every day now and that number has remained steady and we think we’ll see it stay at around that even after Covid because people have started to shop in a different way,” Gary said.

“We are providing a service to the community that they need and they stay loyal to us because of that.”