One year on for Nearby
Print19 April 2022
Back in April 2021, after more than a century in the wholesale business, S&W rebranded its offering and promised ‘A Whole Lot More’ for its symbol customers. One year on and Nearby can now boast over 75 stores serving and supporting local communities across the island of Ireland.
Completely exclusive to S&W Wholesale, Nearby continues to play a vital part in a wider modernization strategy to help independent retailers forge deeper connections in the local community. Despite the extensive challenges faced during the pandemic, the Nearby brand has grown from strength to strength and will continue to operate to the highest standard of safety precautions with the opening of even more new stores planned before year end.
Since the opening of that very first store back in April last year, the business has been working to create a high-quality service for both Nearby retailers and their customers in-store. The new Nearby stores have been very well received in their local communities with retailers noticing an increased level of footfall in their stores as a direct result of the conversion to Nearby. Tommy Macken has been a fantastic loyal customer of S&W’s and it’s great to be able to support his store further under the new Nearby symbol,” said Jason McSteen, sales manager at S&W Wholesale.
With a strong focus on local communities, each Nearby store celebrated the brand’s first birthday over the 8th-10th April weekend with cracking birthday deals on grocery essentials, balloons, giveaways and local fundraising from each store.
The key store for this milestone was based in Cabra, Co. Dublin with a community focused retailer who has been serving and supporting the local area now for over 12 years.
“We are delighted to become a new Nearby store and to be able to open safely with all our staff and customers for the big birthday celebrations,” said retailer Tommy Macken.
“The S&W team have been superb in making the transition seamless and helping getting the store ready for launch,” he added. “The customer feedback has been fantastic on the store and with all that has been going on around the store and the event it has created a real buzz in the local area.”
Tommy Macken and his team have created a central hub right at the heart of Cabra with a busy deli serving hot breakfasts and delicious hot and cold lunches, a post office, off-license, Cuppa Coffee to go, freshly baked goods, Irish Lotto and all its customers’ favourite brands offering value right on their doorstep – nearby.
The event was supported during the run-up and on the day by local radio station 98FM with its Thunder Crew working alongside the Nearby team in handing out Nearby hessian bags packed full of goodies.
There was also live music and shout outs from the 98FM Thunder Car throughout the event creating a party atmosphere for parents and kids joining the team at store. The event also had wine taste testing, local samples to taste, hot party food, free kids sports bags, balloons and the chance to win some fantastic prizes including in store vouchers our exclusive Nearby red present boxes hidden around the store.
“It’s a fantastic accolade to be able to stand with the Macken family in their Nearby store to celebrate the symbol brand being one year since launching into the convenience market,” said Daniel Comiskey, brand marketing lead at S&W Wholesale.
“The dedication and commitment to the local community by the retailer underpins exactly what Nearby stands for,” he continued. “We started this journey during the pandemic and to have reached this milestone with the amount of stores is a true reflection of the hard work and passion from all the retailers thus far and those working behind the scenes at S&W Wholesale. We are very much looking forward to reaching further milestones with the brand this year.”
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