Paisley KeyStore retailer relocates shop to new site

Paisley KeyStore retailer Jack Singh has relocated his long-established store to a purpose-built site just a few metres away.

The well-known family business, which has served its local community in the west end of the Renfrewshire town for over 25 years, has more than doubled in size of its store to 2,000sqft following a complete refit of the former restaurant building.

Singh, who has invested over £500,000 in the project, explained why the business has relocated. “Renfrewshire Council was regenerating the west end of Paisley as part of a regeneration masterplan and creating new social housing so that forced the move.

“It was a no-brainer for us to accept the offer to move as we had no capacity to expand the store at that site and we had reached the stage where we wanted to modernise and introduce new services yet remain in the same area – and I’m delighted to say that not only have our existing customers followed us just a few yards along the road, we’re getting a lot of new business too.”

Singh said that once the new premises had been stripped back there was a “blank canvas” to work with. He said: “It was really exciting to be in that position to effectively start from scratch and design the store the way we wanted it – and also having so much more space, moving from 800sqft, we were able to include services we previously couldn’t and extend areas such as fresh and chilled.

“We worked closely with Robert Paton, our business development manager at JW Filshill, and he was fantastic – Robert’s a former retailer himself so he’s seen it from both sides of the fence and really helped us understand how to make best use of the space.

“He had his ideas, we had our ideas, and together we made it work – although that’s not to say we didn’t change tack along the way as the development progressed. We changed quite a lot, actually, from where we saw it going originally, but I’m 100% delighted with the outcome.”

Singh, who has also owned a KeyStore in Giffnock, near Glasgow, since 2005, joked: “It’s been an A to Z of change, from a new roof, lighting and flooring to extending space for chilled and frozen, bringing in Costa coffee, a Tango Blast machine and putting in a beer cave which we believe may be one of the biggest in Scotland, if not the biggest.

“I’m grateful to all the support from Robert and the Filshill team and my cousin, Garry, who also helped me. It’s a fantastic store and we couldn’t have wished for a better outcome.”

He added, “Our customers are amazed, and many are saying they can’t believe how big our range is now. We’ve always been rooted in the community here in the west end of Paisley so for our customers to remain so loyal and come with us on this journey is the best thing about relocating our store.

“We’re also supporting local suppliers including our butcher Graeme’s Butchers, another long-established business that our customers know.”

Singh expects to welcome even more customers in the future as part of the regeneration of the area includes the creation of hundreds of flats in houses by the council with its housing association partner Sanctuary Scotland.

He added, “We started work on the new shop in January, so it’s been quite a long haul, and it was important to make sure we got it right. There was no question that KeyStore would continue to be our partner – the service and availability we get from Filshill is the superb – the real deal – and an outstanding overall package.”

Craig Brown, chief sales and marketing officer at JW Filshill, said, “We’d like to congratulate Jack on the opening of his best-in-class convenience store in Paisley. Our team worked in partnership with Jack to create a store that has exceeded his expectations – this is a model store that should be a benchmark for other retailers to aspire to.

“With such strong and experienced regional development teams in place, we are ideally placed to partner with retailers who choose KeyStore as the best solution for achieving increased profit and margin, working with us to stimulate growth for our brand and customers in a competitive convenience marketplace.”

Filshill, one of Scotland’s oldest independent food and drink wholesalers which marks its 150^th anniversary in 2025, relocated from Hillington to Westway Park near Glasgow Airport in March 2023.