Scotland’s athletes reign supreme but are the Olympics too English?

While the prospect of the Commonwealth Games coming to Glasgow in 2012 is already causing a stir, we have struggled to sell London 2012 to our community – many people seem to view London 2012 as the ‘English games’.

That said, there is interest in the events where Scottish athletes are in action so we are displaying Union Flags around our store and are keeping up with each days schedule so that we can talk to our customers about what’s happening. This is creating a good feeling in the store –  with an added buzz when Scottish athletes such as Chris Hoy and Andy Murray have won gold!

Camelot’s decision to run the 100 Millionaires Draw on the day of the Opening Ceremony coupled with the big EuroMillions jackpot was also brilliant! We had a great increase in the number of lottery players and benefitted from added sales across the store. A very welcomed bonus.

The events that are getting a better level of interest among our customers are definitely those scheduled for the evenings, therefore our big promotional push is on multi packs of beer. We are promoting a range of brands including Tennents 12 pack, Carling 12 and Budweiser 15 at £9.99 and Carlsberg, Fosters and Strongbow 10 packs at £7.99. These are are regular top sellers so the keen prices are working well and creating good sales. We also have at least one unbeatable special offer across our key categories.

The extended Sunday trading laws causing distress in England hasn’t affected us in the same way as supermarkets in Scotland open long hours every Sunday anyway. It’s just another one of those things that sets Scotland apart.