Exclusive: Indie retailer goes extra mile for Extra Flamin' Hot launch

Independent retailer Bobby Singh, owner of BB Nevison Superstore in Pontefract in West Yorkshire, once again managed to buzz up the community as well as social media, this time for the launch of Walkers' Extra Flamin' Hot, a celebration that saw the store's sales "going through the roof".

Talking to Asian Trader, Singh revealed how the recent activation done in collaboration with PepsiCo and Cirkle, has been a huge success.

"I am really proud of playing a central role in this journey from start to finish which turned out to be a great successful activation, along with retailers Atul Sodha, Priyesh Vekaria and Aman Uppal. This successful initiative was enabled due to excellent support by Cirkle and obviously PepsiCo who provided with all the POS and other stock," he said.

Through Retailer Inner Cirkle, Singh was involved heavily with ideating, creating and putting together the whole in-store theatre.

"We were involved right from the start- from creating the POS. I am so proud to say that we have been giving feedback on various aspects like how there should be a fire extinguisher for extra effect.

"The whole setup and arrangement that we did in our store and the theatre that we created really helped in giving our customers an amazing customer experience as well as promoting the product. With all that happening, the products were just flown off the shelves, and it's been a huge success."

As a part of the theme, there was a themed firetruck parked outside Singh's store to add to the fun element as well as amazing visuals. Soon it turned into an ideal post for selfies.

Singh also promoted the activation even on social media, circulating the pictures of in-store theatre, which created quite a buzz and saw people travelling miles to visit the store. The whole activation saw a 30-40 per cent increase in footfall.

"It's been crazy on our social media handles. Demand for the product is constantly rising.

"What it's done for me is that it transformed it into a destination store. We are seeing people coming from faraway places, even from the next town. They are actually traveling miles to see what's happening in the store."

"People are messaging us left, right, and centre wanting to know more and to say that the store is looking brilliant.

When people travel from far to check out such an event, it somewhere increases our portfolio. Apart from sales, we also benefit from expansion of our customer base," Singh told Asian Trader.