We love watching programs on TV about retail and we really enjoyed watching The People’s Supermarket on channel four over the past few weeks.

If you didn’t catch the program it was all about a man with ideal of having a supermarket run by the people for the people, his name is Arthur Potts Dawson. His ideal was to have a supermarket that the customers worked in after joining for £25, they had to commit to working four hours a month and they would then get 10% off their shopping.

The programme followed the ups and downs of the first few weeks of the supermarket, from excitement to depression and a visit from David Cameron in between (not sure which that would come under).

As ever we at Urban33 were interested in visiting a store featured in a programme like this, so last weekend we headed down to London to find the supermarket.

I have to say I was really disappointed in the store, I know the story, I know that there wasn’t much money for it to start up but it was pretty rubbish if I am honest. Much smaller than I thought, but that is telly for you, the range of food was ordinary and really badly laid out. Good points would be the bread and veg selection which looked different and looked like I would want to buy it.

I suppose I believed that if this was going to be truly for the people then the selection of products would match this, similar to a farmers market type supermarket. Don’t get me wrong there was some products that came from ‘farmers’ but there was no information on the fruit and veg about where it came from or pushing the fact that it was ‘British’.

Another very odd choice was sugar in giant sacks that you weighed out yourself….really?

There was also a queue of some 6-8 customers waiting at the till as there was only one person serving there, yet two assistants seemed to be just wandering around the store?

For something like this to succeed in needs to be run as a real business, with business ideas and business promotions, not as a ‘please all’ charity store. I am sure if they went to suppliers and asked for display material, fridges and the like and told them they were going to be on channel four they would of offered to help. When we are contacting by programme makers we always offer free stock as we know the effects of products being featured on such programs.

The store needs to be run by a retail manager who can implement this, rather than run by 50 different people who all have an idea of what THEY want, but not always what IS right.

We will be watching the People’s Supermarket with a lot of interest to see if it can work and keep you posted!

You can visit their website The People’s Supermarket

We are going to be using  this blog to keep you up to date with what’s going on with the company but also some helpful hints and tips for selling and buying on the Internet.

As an Internet only based company we have learnt a lot about selling and buying online and we hope to share some of this with you. As the Internet is a massive and forever changing world we don’t know it all and we are always learning, so if anything new comes along we will share that with you to.

We hope you enjoy and as ever you can leave us some comments!

Thanks

Stuart and the Team at Urban33

See Gardens2You At The Following Events

	Spirit of Summer Fair 13 – 16 May 2010 Olympia London
	Grand Designs Live 1st – 9th May 2010 Excel London
	Gardeners’ World Live 16th – 20th June 2010 The NEC Birmingham
	Sandringham Flower Show 28th July 2010 Sandringham
	Grand Designs Live – Birmingham 15th – 17th October 2010 The NEC Birmingham

See Urban Woman/Male At The Following Events

Clothes Show Live Birmingham 3-8th December 201

We are also happy to hear from potential suppliers for our sites please use the same contact details above to send us details of your products.

Selected lines from our stores are also available on a wholesale basis, again please email us with your requirements.

Our aim is to become one of the most trusted retailers on the internet, we don’t want to be the biggest, but offer top service to all our customers no matter what. Trust is a big issue when it comes to the internet that’s why all our stores are 100% secure. We offer payment through a number of trusted avenues including PayPal and Google checkout so you know your details will be safe.

We are constantly searching the globe for different and high quality products to offer you through our stores. New stock is always arriving and not only do we offer our own brands but well know selected brand names to. All our stores offer a no quibble returns policy, so if you’re not happy in any way with the item or just don’t want it can be returned for a refund.

We hope that you choose to or have enjoyed shopping within the Urban33 family of stores and we welcome any feedback, good or bad just drop us an email using the contact us page of this or any of our websites.

Stuart Baldry
Director
Urban33 Limited