It's more welcoming Bipin Patel, Deptford Convenience store Size: 1,000 sq ft





?I'm a member of a symbol group and I tend to do most of my buying from there because it's convenient and availability is always very good. But it has also helped me to develop my store and it's much better now. Sales have increased and it feels much more welcoming. Usually I just do top-ups at cash and carries, where I can often pick up good deals. Londis doesn't stock ethnic products either, so I go elsewhere for those, but other than that there aren't really any other disadvantages to being part of Londis. And I can definitely manage to compete with Tesco Express on price. It's just the supermarkets that I find it particularly difficult to compete with.

It makes life easier Asvin Patel, South Croydon Convenience store Size: 1,250 sq ft



?I'm a member of a symbol group and I like the delivery service it offers. I use it at least once a week as it makes life so much easier. I go to cash and carries to top up at least three times a week too, because they have better promotions. The advice Londis gives is good. It helped me develop my new shop front and improve it inside as well - it's now much tidier. But the majority of people come in-store to use things like PayPoint or the telephone. Only 10% just come in for shopping, so I wanted to use promotions to get more people buying groceries. Londis helped me with that too, by advising me on ways of making use of my promotions, and my sales are up 5% as a result.

It may help profitsShaku Patel, Durand News, Castleton Convenience store Size: 1,000 sq ftI

t

ried to be a member of Costcutter but it didn't happen, because the Nisa store was too far away for me to get to. I'm now trying to be part of another group though and I hope that will happen soon. Hopefully being part of a symbol group will make me more profit, and it does deliveries which would help a lot. I also need advice and would like to make use of the service, and you can get magazines too. I have to go to cash and carries and I come here to Dhamecha every day because it offers better promotions and it stocks lots of different foods. I think we can compete with the convenience formats of supermarkets on some lines, but other lines, such as groceries, can be hard to compete with on price.