With the recent opening of Premier’s 500th store in Scotland, SLR looks back at the rise and rise of the UK’s largest symbol group and our reigning Symbol Group of the Year.
With the recent opening of Premier Ali’s Convenience Store in Tranent on the outskirts of Edinburgh, the Premier symbol group reached another major milestone by reaching the 500 stores mark in Scotland, an impressive achievement given that this figure represents around 10% of the entire market in Scotland.
It has been a remarkable couple of years for the Booker-owned group. In just two-and-a-half years some 150 stores across the UK joined Premier, taking the total to over 4,000 and cementing its position as the country’s biggest symbol group.
And, of course, Premier was named Symbol Group of the Year at the 2022 SLR Awards thanks in no small part to the commendable way it supported Premier retailers in Scotland in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic.
Premier has long offered a no-nonsense, straightforward model that focuses first and foremost on delivering the profits that independent retailers need to maintain and grow sustainable businesses. The simplicity and value of that offer came into sharp focus during the Covid years and the group’s established modular approach to helping retailers build busy, profitable stores is helping attract retailers keen to squeeze every penny of profit out of every square foot of space in their stores.
Milestone store
Two retailers that saw the value in the Premier model were husband-and-wife team Zulfiqar and Anila Ali, who were so convinced that the latest Premier thinking would work in their store that they were prepared to invest more than £210,000 in a full top-to-bottom refit.
The relatively small 1,400sq ft store has fully embraced Premier’s tried-and-tested modular approach that allows retailers to pick and choose from a range of solutions that focus on high margin, high volume, minimum intervention products and services.
That model has been evolved and finessed over the years in flagship Premier stores such as Mandeep Singh’s Premier store in Sheffield and, more recently, Premier Talbot Village in Bournemouth. The approach offers retailers a bank of proven high margin, high volume solutions. Retailers simply pick and choose according to the needs of their own customer base.
Among the ‘modules’ on offer in Tranent are a Refresh@Premier Bar featuring hot and cold drinks-to-go, a beer cave, a vape bar, a greatly extended fresh and chilled bay and a strong frozen offer, all complemented by Premier’s rolling promotional programme. The store also fitted digital shelf edge labels and runs a home delivery service through Snappy Shopper.
The result? In just the first 10 weeks after the refit sales were up 50% and the store was seeing around 1,000 more customers a week cross its threshold. The Refresh@Premier Bar is taking over £3,500 a week from a standing start – with margins of around 65% – and the home delivery service has grown by about 30% since the refit and now takes around £6,000 a week. And both Anila and Zulfiqar feel that there’s still plenty of growth to come.
- 1994 – Premier launched
- 2001 – First Premier store launched in Scotland
- 2003 – Premier reaches 1,000 stores
- 2007 – Premier reaches 2,000 stores
- 2008 – Bespoke Scotland leaflets launched
- 2014 – Premier reaches 3,000 stores
- 2022 – Premier reaches 4,000 stores
- 2022 – Premier named SLR Symbol Group of the Year
- 2023 – Premier reaches 500 stores in Scotland
Phenomenal growth
All of which is testament to the strength of the current Premier offer and doubly remarkable considering that the first Premier store in Scotland only opened in 2001. Premier had been in existence for around seven years by then but the next couple of decades were to see growth turbo-charged.
Premier reached the 1,000-store milestone in 2003, then hit 2,000 in 2007 and 3,000 in 2014. Last year saw Premier open its 4,000th store and, north of the border, 2023 saw the 500th Premier store open in Scotland.
As for the future, Booker Sales Director for Retail Martyn Parkinson believes that the sky is the limit, particularly with so many retailers attracted to Premier’s blueprint model and so many prepared to spend the money required to deliver modern, highly profitable stores.
“The really encouraging thing for us is that retailers are seeing what we are doing with the Premier model, they’re seeing other Premier stores reap the benefits and they’re willing to invest in refurbishing their own stores to a very high standard,” says Parkinson.
“The Tranent store, for example, saw £210,000 invested and none of that was on building work – that was all refit and that’s a considerable investment.
“We know how tough it is out there at the moment and that’s why we’re working so hard to get our Premier retailers’ margins up to 30%. Stores that follow the blueprint typically see margins increase by 6% or 7%. It’s all about creating a great in-store environment and working smart in key categories, keeping costs down and maximising PORs. We believe that if you follow our blueprint, you will get margins to 30% and you can expect full payback on your investment within 12 months.”
500 celebrations
To celebrate the 500th Scottish store achievement, Premier will be planting 500 trees in Scotland as part of its ongoing sustainability plan and will also be offering the chance to win £10,000 towards a new Refresh@Premier Bar to retailers who join the Premier family in the next six months.
Additionally, Premier will be donating 500 family meals in Scotland through the Fareshare charity, helping to support families in need across the country.
“It’s an exciting time in Scotland for Premier,” concludes Parkinson. “We have a long and very successful history in Scotland and I’m looking forward to welcoming more Scottish stores to Premier in the future.”
