Staff at a much-loved jewellers that continues to weather the storm amid the sharp decline in footfall in Scunthorpe town centre are still “basking in the glory” after winning a prestigious retail award.
Situated in Jubilee Way, F. Hinds the Jewellers has been trading in Scunthorpe for 23 years. Recently, the team managed to scoop the top prize at the annual National Retail Jewellers Awards at a prestigious awards ceremony in London.
Store manager Jackie told Scunthorpe Live that the team are “elated” to have won the award, especially given the “challenges” faced in Scunthorpe town centre in recent years.
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She said: “We were finalists along with another nine jewellery stores in the country and we’re truly elated that we won. Despite the challenges experienced in Scunthorpe town centre, with vacant units, shops closing and footfall down.
“The Head Office nominated us and they let us know they’d nominated us back in February, but I didn’t say anything to anybody because I wasn’t sure if it was going to come to anything. We’d already won the national and regional Mystery Shopping awards for the whole company, and we had great Google reviews, so we were chosen because of that.”
Jackie said the whole team are still “basking in the glory” of the win, especially given the decline in Scunthorpe’s shopping scene.
She continued: “We’re still basking in the glory of it. I’ve been here for seven years, and when I first came here there were four full-time workers and two part-timers. Now, there’s just me full-time, and the rest are part-time.
“The footfall in Scunthorpe town centre is quite low – it’s a bit like tumbleweed. The trading patterns have changed, and we’ve lost the big anchor shops like Marks & Spencer, BHS, Debenhams and House of Fraser. We lost H Samuel about a month ago, too. We used to have 20+ customers a day but now we get around five or six, so it’s a lot lower.
“But myself and my team of five have managed to increase takings, score highly on mystery shopping visits and achieve 4.9 out of 5 on our Google reviews for great customer service. I’d like to thank my wonderful team and all the customers who support our business.”
Original artice: https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/all-about/scunthorpe
