Trolley dash as price of booze plummets over Christmas



Longport Londis, Canterbury



A Canterbury shopkeeper has revealed that this Christmas she turned to buying her stock from Supermarkets.

Kitty Patel, owner of the Longport Londis in Canterbury, has said that she went to her local supermarket and snapped up the too good to be true bargains.

A recent report released by The Grocer revealed that it is common practice for convenience store owners to make a trolley dash around their local supermarket, as prices are often cheaper than what wholesalers can offer.

This Christmas the supermarket price wars meant that alcohol prices were slashed to the lowest they have been in some time.

Rumours of price cuts and bargain basement deals spread like wildfire on shopping forums such as Money Saving Expert, leading to bare shelves on the alcohol aisle.

Mrs Patel said: "We've noticed a decrease in customer sales over the past few months so to try and keep afloat we needed to find the cheapest way of buying our stock. We expected Christmas to be quite a difficult month as people tend to bulk buy more in the Supermarkets. It just happened that the supermarkets were cheaper than the wholesaler.

I know that some convenience store owners will sometimes go to France to pick up cheap stock. I personally wouldn't compromise on the quality of my stock and start buying products from abroad... our customers prefer the brands they are familiar with."

We spoke to Kitty Patel last year to see how she managed to cope in this tough economic climate. To watch the interview click 'play' below.