Retail Strategy

"Act Like a Multiple"

Nisa’s retail strategy is to deliver benefits for independent retailers and help them grow their sales and profits in an increasingly competitive market.

The key aspects of this strategy flow from Nisa-Today’s "mission statement":

"Passionate About Independent Retailing and Wholesaling:
Committed to Creating Benefits for Members"

All Nisa Retail stores are independently owned. We have a culture, built over 30 years, of supporting these entrepreneurs to succeed and grow their businesses. One of the ways that Nisa does this is to "act like a multiple". We buy huge quantities of products into very large and efficient central distribution operations and deliver over 12,000 product lines from these facilities into independent retailers from the Channel Islands to the Orkneys.

By being very large and efficient and keeping our operating costs low, we believe we can provide probably the lowest cost of supply in the market.

We support this with flexibility. Members of Nisa can trade under their own fascia or, increasingly, under the successful Nisa Symbol name. We won the prestigious "Symbol/Fascia Group of the Year" award at the 2007 Retail Industry Awards, which means that the increasingly popular Nisa symbol is really going places. However, we don’t operate a one-size-fits-all mentality and work around the needs of independent retailers. For example, Nisa members have access to three different trading packages including customer leaflet and point of sale, individually tailored to their trading style and customer base and all consumer leaflets can be personalised.

Nisa is well known for the strength of its promotional offers. Nisa members offer their customers over 300 product offers every three weeks and the sheer size of the group buying power, enables us to create offers which drive footfall and sales for independent stores.

Customers increasingly want access to high quality fresh foods and our extensive range and frequent delivery service means that Nisa members are also well placed to provide for this need, with everything from daily staples to fresh flowers and sandwiches.

The Nisa Retail strategy is ultimately very simple. It is about thousands of retailers working together to create and share buying power and Central Distribution Services which make the business look, feel and act like a multiple.

The Nisa system can be as individual as the retailer wishes but, as you would expect, there are also significant rewards and rebates available for loyalty and adding extra volume to the system. By working together, each retailer is significantly better off than if they were trading individually. Consumers benefit from vibrant local stores, selling an excellent range of products at good prices and run by local entrepreneurs.

The Nisa buying, marketing and distribution system is backed up with a great team of people at the Member Support Centre in Scunthorpe and in our depots across the UK. Nisa supports its members with full central office back-up incorporating everything from great people and cutting-edge technological ordering to planogram services.

The objective is ultimately simple, and that is to create a “Low Cost - High Benefit” environment for the retailer and consumer. Nisa has a low cost central operation providing significant benefits for its members. The organisation is entirely owned by its members and any profits are usually reinvested in the business to create greater efficiency and benefit or redistributed so that retailers can invest in their own businesses. As Nisa is entirely owned by its members, this means that all the benefit created goes to them.

We believe that all these things – added together – create an effective strategy for Nisa retailers to compete and survive in today’s marketplace.