MEET MRS. EZEL, THE OWNER OF EREN'S SUPERMARKET IN ROTHERHITHE, OUR PARCELLY LOCATION OF THE MONTH!
Mikra and her husband Eren have been successfully running their business for over 35 years now, when Eren first bought the store. Staying ahead of the curve and meeting the needs of the ever-changing retail market are topics close to their heart, constantly improving and innovating the products and services they offer in-store. Eren's Supermarket truly is at the centre of a close-knit Rotherhithe community, where even during our short stay there, locals were able to pick up goods and trusted to pay at a later date when coming back in a few days time. This is exactly the sense of community small businesses create for their local area and the type of amazing work we want to shine a spotlight on with our nominations.
Championing our Click&Collect and Key Exchange service and offering a brilliant customer service, Eren's Supermarket is a fantastic business partner to work with. We had a great time talking with Mrs Ezel and finding out more about the shop’s history:
So, what is your feedback on running the Parcelly service?
It’s easy! It’s usually myself or my husband who takes care of the parcels, but it’s all very self-explanatory. The app is straightforward to use, I’ve got it installed on my own phone. And my husband uses the one provided by you, so yeah very easy... Your colleague Hugo came to visit us a few times to update the phone and make sure everything was working properly, he was very nice.
How long have you and your husband been running the store?
I’ve not been here as long, but my husband has been running the business for over 35 years! It was a store previously, but we bought it and changed quite a bit, you can see we even extended the space to fit a wider variety of products and services. To be honest, it’s been challenging with the recent economy over last few years especially. The likes of Amazon and online shopping is even affecting huge stores like House of Fraser, so you can imagine the pressure on us smaller stores. You need to constantly evolve, do something new and innovative to bring the people in, otherwise you will be left behind. We’re always looking for new services to run, have been with Parcelly right from the start almost four years ago, and now also offer your Key Exchange service too. And we also work with a few other parcel collection services, as you are non-exclusive which is great.
Is London your home town?
Well, I moved to Sheffield initially and I really liked living in a city, so the only obvious next step was to move to London - and now I’ve been here for over 20 years! It is my home away from home. But I love London, there’s so much to do you can never get bored. And if anyone who lives in London ever tells me they’re bored, I tell them ‘you must be living in a different city to me!’... (we fully agree!)
Do you have any fun facts about the store?
We once had Bill Nighy come into the store, because just over there (pointing across the road) there is a big BBC costume and production studio. I didn’t get a picture unfortunately, but he did sign a £10 note… which, now I think about it, I may have given out to a customer haha (lucky customer!). Really, we could have had an entire wall of fame for all the celebrities that came in. We had Shane Lynch from Boy Zone, there was Robert Pattinson, Benedict Cumberbatch, even Johnny Depp came once in when he was filming the Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise. My friend works at the studio and she’s always coming by alerting us who is around...
Location: 22-24 Albion St, London SE16 7JQ (What3Words: slower.edges.never)
Opening Times: Monday-Saturday: 08:00-22:00 and Sunday: 09:00-22:00
The app is super simple to use. It’s nice that we can operate all the services we offer from just one application, and don’t have to use one app for one thing and one for another. And I don’t need to grab a specific tool/scanner to check in a parcel, because I can just use my phone, which is always in my pocket!
- Mrs Ezel, Store Owner
Once again we want to say CONGRATULATIONS to Eren's Supermarket and a big THANK YOU for being such a great business partner and contributing towards Parcelly’s vision!
Parcelly aims to give business owners full control over their parcel flow, offering them the ability to modify the number of parcels they wish to receive, as well as the option to control the size of the parcels stored - all in real time via the app. This means that regardless of the storage capacity or nature of your business, we welcome you to join our parcel collection network and benefit from new customers, additional footfall to your store as well as an additional revenue stream.
If your business is interested in joining our nationwide network and becoming a Parcelly location for Click&Collect, Key Exchange or Mini-Warehousing services, please do not hesitate to CONTACT US.
