People are panic buying in supermarkets over coronavirus fears, but this could be an opportunity for convenience stores, feel independent retailers.
“Supermarkets are no longer stocked. So, all the customers are forced to migrate to local stores,” Manjinder Singh, who runs Avenue Stores in Amersham, told Asian Trader.
“They are going to supermarkets and they don’t find any of them (hand sanitisers). When they come to local stores, we have it here. They feel that intervention for the people come from a local store than a supermarket.”
Amish Singhadia, of Londis Caterways at Horsham, says customers are adopting a selective approach, rather than panic buying, at his store.
“We have seen selective buying. We also see big uplift in toiletries, hand soaps, long life-food products and frozen,” he said.
Singhadia added that hand soaps are bit of a problem as far as the stock levels are concerned. “But in toilet paper and other products, we are catching in.”
Neil Beeson, of MK Food Stores in Iver Heath, concurs.
“So far, we haven’t had a bad (day) in our store. Everything appears to be normal. Only thing we are just down is hand wash and hand sanitiser. Other than that, toilet paper and stuff like that, nothing kicked up yet,” he said.
“Our cash and carry is pretty much stocked on the moment, other than hand wash.”
Read More: A third of shoppers say they are stockpiling over coronavirus fears
Manjinder, however, feels that this shortage will be of short term, and wholesalers Asian Trader spoke to reiterate that.
“As a business, Parfetts moved earlier to conduct supply-chain-mapping and risk-monitoring to ensure our operations are resilient. We are working closely with suppliers to ensure it is business as usual across our depots and digital channels,” said Guy Swindell, retail director at Parfetts Cash & Carry.
Bestway said they have already built additional weeks’ of stock of key items, with daily review of sales and stocks.
“We are experiencing unprecedented demand on several products, but our availability continues to be very strong. Ongoing we are working closely with suppliers to amend our product forecasts in line with sales,” a spokesperson said.
“In a bid to help customers identify products they might want to stock at this time, we also have cleaning product displays at the front of depots.”
Read More: Supermarkets impose limits to curtail coronavirus stockpiling
British cases of coronavirus have jumped 29 percent to 590 over the past 24 hours, health authorities said on Thursday, with the death toll rising to 10.
Earlier this week, the government has announced that it will temporarily relax the restrictions on night time deliveries to food retailers to support industry’s response to the coronavirus.
The measure aims to help retailers to increase the frequency of deliveries to their stores and replenish their shelves quickly.
