Bolt-on business

Bookshops have been integrating café's for some time now

There are many ways one can enhance a shop’s business by adding extra products or services that add turnover and profitability.

Like many others, we added a Post Office to our Village Store seven years ago and we have been very pleased with the additional income that we’ve gained from it. The next bolt on has been the National Lottery, a product with restricted availability through Camelot.

Whilst visiting Somerset recently my wife and I used two cafés that were bolted on to the proprietors original businesses. One was attached to a kitchen designer’s show room while the other was in Castle Cary and run by Terry and Melanie Philpott, past winners of the Independent Achiever Academy. This was not our first visit to Castle Cary as we have known Terry for more that 35 years. Last time we visited we had a full viewing of the store that is just across the road, Martins of Castle Cary.

Their café, The Place, shows the attention to detail that Terry and Melanie have in both of their business’s, which explains their success. While we were there the standard of presentation exhibited in the service was a delight to see. This ran from the easygoing conversation with their customers through the colourful presentation of the meals and ensuring that mothers with babies are catered for with a well thought out changing facility.

Terry and Melanie have produced an excellent additional business that uses all the retail skills that they show off in their shop from the local supply chain to the customer interaction, but most significantly they clearly enjoy all that they are doing in Castle Cary.