Happy shoppers as Matalan store opens in St Martin’s

The store, which has taken over the site that used to be occupied by Asda’s George, opened its doors to queues yesterday morning.

It is being run as a franchise by SandpiperCI.

The company’s brand director Clair Sequeira said they were delighted to be opening a Matalan in the heart of St Martin’s.

‘All of us know that retail everywhere is struggling at the moment and in the islands we’ve all seen quite a few brands disappear from the High Street, which is really disappointing and sad, so it’s massive for us to bring a new brand into the island, and it does demonstrate that we do believe in the high street. I think the high street is still very important.

‘We’ve a full team that work there, we have a team that work the deliveries and the store stock that comes through, and also the management team were transferred over from the George franchise, and a couple of new roles have been created, so it’s a good little team.

‘Earlier this month, we opened a similar store in Jersey which has already exceeded our expectations. We’re expecting Matalan Guernsey to be just as well received.’

As well as in Jersey, Matalan has more than 200 stores across the UK and more than 40 in Europe, North Africa and the

Middle East.

Opening a new store is a lot of work at the best of times, but under border restrictions, social distancing and all the other lockdown requirements, it was extra challenging.

‘I’ve opened a lot of stores in my career and this is the only store I’ve ever opened remotely, which has been both strange and interesting as well.

‘So the teams have done an amazing job, both here and in the UK, in firstly getting the stock to the island, and then managing that stock through and into the store, all with social distancing in place, so it has been very challenging.

‘We’ve taken in 11 separate deliveries, it’s a lot of units.

‘You don’t do this job unless you really love the fact that customers love the shop, that’s the important thing, and for me personally there’s nothing better than seeing happy customers and queues

of customers wanting to come

in.

‘And I think in the current climate it’s really nice for us to be opening a new store, it’s exciting, it’s something positive to talk about rather than retailers disappearing, so it’s a nice story.’