Rebranded Stores

I managed to get to our Histon Road and our Linton stores over the last few days - both have been recently rebranded, and both are looking smart although the small temporary frontage is currently in place at both shops. The shops seem a little better laid out, and generally seem fresher. Histon Road seems larger than it was before to me, which is interesting, because the shop floor has actually been slightly reduced in size in order to allow longer opening on Sundays (this area reduction was announced at the recent all-members half-yearly meeting).

However, neither store had a dedicated members noticeboard - as regular readers of this blog will be only too aware this is the hobby horse of several members on the local area committee and regional board (including me!), and shouldn't really be happening in newly refitted stores. I will raise this again at the next area meeting....

One last point. In my last post concerning Histon Road Co-op, I mentioned that pillars in the store really get in the way. Well the store hasn't been rebuilt, so they are still there, but as part of a new store template, they are now rather stylishly coloured matt black with suitably Co-operative messages regarding Fairtrade, ethical shopping and other themes. Glad to see that we are making a positive out of a necessity.