A week after opening the doors for the first time, IGA Canungra Manager Duane Fry thanked the Canungra community for their support and feedback on the store.
“We appreciate all customers shopping local and supporting our small family operated business. This week was very insane for us but we managed to pull through as a team.”
The past week has been exceptionally busy and sales of some products have outstripped other IGA supermarkets the company owns on the Gold Coast.
Duane said he and the IGA staff have been monitoring feedback about the store on social media, as well as chatting to customers in store.
Duane hired a number of local staff prior to opening, rather than bringing in staff from outside the area and asked for patience while the new staff adjust to the systems in place.
“Our staff are still in training,” he said.
“Please be patient with us, we will rectify and fix any issues that we have. Even taking on some existing employees from the previous supermarket, we run our IGA very differently, they are different tills, different produce items, different grocery items, different deli and definitely different processes and procedures.”
“We were monitoring the amount of customers coming through the door and rightly understand that some customers were not happy with waiting in queues.”
“We attended to the issue immediately and have already organised another till/terminal to be able to serve customers faster and more efficiently.”
The store has already made some adjustments in response to the demand and feedback from customers. However other changes, such as additional meat fridges, have been planned for some time.
“Our meat department will be expanding. There have been numerous enquiries regarding our selection of meat.”
“The fridges the meat is currently displayed in are temporary. We decided to hire fridges while waiting for our custom fridges to be delivered instead of delaying opening, once our new fridges are here, we will be expanding our range.:
The IGA is keen to keep prices competitive and Duane is monitoring pricing of other supermarkets to maintain a competitive edge, stating the store is on IGA’s lowest format pricing currently.
“The pricing of bread has been reduced, as we are multi site operators we have negotiated deals with the bread companies to reduce the price of bread, in some circumstances we have been able to reduce some Tip Top/Abbotts items by roughly $2 per item.”
The current range of products in store will be reviewed according to sales and customer feedback and expanded if required.
“Once again we appreciate you all shopping local and supporting us and we are very happy and proud to be a part of the community.”
IGA Canungra is currently looking to hire two additional management roles – an experienced full time Deli Manager and full time Produce Manager.
Applicants should have at least two years experience in a similar role and can send their resume to igacanungra@gmail.com.
For more information, customers can visit the IGA Canungra Facebook page, call the store on 07 5619 9714 or email igacanungra@gmail.com.
