Sainsbury's Wetherby Road, Harrogate: Grocer 33 store of the week

Have you been affected by the snow this week? We were lucky. The forecast was very poor for this area but the snow never materialised. We got a bit on Friday but when everybody had snow in the south we got away with it. It was a relief because we have a massive online department and if we get snow the impact is massive.

Is your online operation growing? We now do 25% of our trade online and that’s almost double what we were doing this time last year. We’re a big store, too. Our online catchment area is massive - it goes from north Leeds right up to the Yorkshire Dales and some of our drives are nearly two hours long. Our Christmas slots are pretty much booked up as soon as they become available.

You recently got an Argos. Yes, at the beginning of September we closed down the store in Harrogate town centre and moved it into our branch. That’s been really successful. Having an Argos on site has boosted our trade and it’s been good for the store in terms of footfall.

How is your sushi counter going? We got a Sushi Daily over a year ago and it’s going very well. Customers love it because the quality of the product is excellent so it really fits in with our proposition. We get most of the trade at lunchtime and after work at teatime. It’s quite surprising how popular sushi is around lunchtime.

You’re one of the selected stores for the Patisserie Valerie partnership, too. Yes, we sell Patisserie Valerie products at our cake counter. Customers really like it because it’s a fantastic quality product. It’s a real treat and it’s gone down well.

As we approach Christmas, are any ranges selling particularly well? For us, it’s wine. We’re doing a 25%-off deal and we’re always in the top two or three branches in the company in wine sales when we run that deal. Fizz in general is doing very well and always does this time of year.