“My wife, two kids and I landed here with a suitcase each,” recalls Bruce Nethersole, a serial entrepreneur who emigrated from Zimbabwe because of its turbulent political and economic situation.
“We used to have a 10-bedroom house in Victoria Falls and a five-bedroom one in Bulawayo. Then we had to start all over again.”
Bruce had to make some uncomfortable adjustments to his work life as well as his lifestyle. Before buying a convenience store in Stoke-on-Trent in December 2006, he worked for a Derby company helping to develop an international market for diamond blades.
Post offices were too formal for us because of all the rules, though we’d still like to do it one day
Bruce Nethersole, serial entrepreneur
Working for someone else was hard to handle for someone who has run businesses for almost two decades, setting up his first — a company organising safari tours — when he was just 19. Bruce, now 39, has run pubs, restaurants, a butchers’, a shop selling African artefacts and various other ventures.
Regulatory burden
After all that, a convenience store might have seemed eminently manageable. However, it was the first UK business he had bought and that posed its own challenges.
“Zimbabwean law is based on English law,” says Bruce. “But you have to be more organised here. The process is more rigid and there’s more information.” “More organised” is ambiguous, denoting greater efficiency but also more red tape.
It was because of the extra regulatory burden that Bruce and his wife opted against buying a post office, something they had initially considered. “Post offices were too formal for us because of all the rules, though we’d still like to do it one day.”
Along with red tape, expensive overheads are the other great gripe of British entrepreneurs. But Bruce and his wife, who is English and from Doncaster, would have found any western European country expensive coming from Africa.
“We had a lot of employees before, which didn’t cost a lot out in Zimbabwe. Now it’s a little bit harder.”
Word of mouth is less important to the popularity of a convenience store than it is to other businesses. People use them principally for, well, convenience.
They rely on passing trade and the regular custom of local residents. Bruce understood that location is everything when he bought his business.
Potential
“Our location is residential. In terms of through traffic it’s good, as we are next to a busy shortcut which cuts from the A50 to the city centre. If the A50 is blocked up people use this way to get through to the city.”
Bruce was commendably thorough in his assessment of the potential for custom. “I sat outside monitoring traffic so I could get an idea of whether there was decent potential in this. I sat out watching the traffic from 5am to 10pm — one, to see how much traffic goes past, and two, to see what trade goes through the door. But mainly to see the potential.”
Bruce was satisfied, even though there was a large Tesco supermarket opposite.
But then again, convenience stores thrive in the shadows of supermarkets up and down the country. Indeed, if you want a convenience store in a busy location you’re unlikely to be far from one.
Bruce accepts it is difficult to compete on price, “but people do use us more for convenience if they forget one item in their main shop.”
A sizeable part of the shop’s revenues come from newspapers and magazines, and particularly the delivery of newspapers, a service which Tesco — touch wood — doesn’t yet provide.
“We deliver a lot of newspapers, with 19 delivery rounds, so we have quite a good customer base,” says Bruce. “The store has a reputation for its huge range of magazines.”
Confident he has a good base to build from, Bruce can see plenty of ways to boost custom.
