Seaborn Stores
Sandra and Don Busby started Seaborn Stores about 20 years ago. It had been a shop previously to that but was closed. After much cleaning and setting up, Seaborn Stores opened. Approximately 3 years later, they became a Londis store. The shop very quickly became a popular ‘corner shop’. When the newsagent at the top of Seaborn Road closed, they added newspapers to their growing portfolio.
Sandra and Don retired 3 years ago and their daughter, Kelly, took over. She continued to expand the business, stocking more lines than ever.
Lockdown
A year later, lockdown happened. Kelly by this time had increased staffing and was slowly building a regular team focused on customer service. Lockdown brought significant challenges to the business and at a staff meeting it was decided unanimously to support the local community as much as possible during the pandemic. Although not an easy task, the team set to with a will. At one point Kelly was living over the shop and was separated from her partner and young daughter for 8 weeks in order to ensure the safety of the customers and staff!
Deliveries were started and soon became very busy, especially to the more vulnerable of the local community. All the staff were involved fully and a whole team of volunteers, known as Kelly’s Heroes, collected and delivered from the shop to its customers. At one point, there were more than 20 deliveries per day! It was so popular, visits to the wholesalers could be up to 4 per day! To ensure customers could get what they needed, new suppliers were sought. I know personally that we could ALWAYS get what we needed from Seaborn Stores. If it wasn’t in, Kelly managed to source it by the following day.
As lockdown started to ease, measures were taken in the store to limit possible exposure to Covid. A customer limit in the shop and masks worn by staff were the most visible measures taken. This was adhered to patiently by the customers who would queue up outside.
The opportunity was also taken to replace the door, windows and signage in the store and to replace the forecourt tarmac.
Products and Services
On top of the usual groceries, the store has fresh bread daily, great pies from Greenhalgh’s Craft Bakery, including sausage rolls, a particular favourite of mine! They also supply really nice flour for both bread and cakes. Locally sourced fresh eggs, salad and vegetables are available and there is an extremely good and varied beer and wine section. A selection of greetings cards, handy bits and pieces like emery boards and hair bobbles, newspapers, frozen goods, biscuits and cakes and much more is all there in the store.
As well as all this you can order fresh fish, which if ordered by Monday afternoon, will be delivered on Tuesday morning. The Chowder company visit once a fortnight on the shop forecourt and Kelly is always open to suggestions for additional services.
The store is moving to sustainable packaging, providing paper bags for salad and vegetables and handy, strong, reusable jute bags for shoppers. Local suppliers are used wherever possible, keeping the mileage down for deliveries and guaranteeing the quality and freshness of the produce.
The store continues to deliver as requested and is also happy to deliver goods for those who prefer to shop in the store but cannot carry the bags home. Deliveries are made using boxes where possible, again helping with sustainability by reusing produce boxes.
If you would like to use the delivery service, or know someone who would benefit from delivery you can phone an order through on 01524 424411 and your order will be dealt with personally. You can also text, email or send by FaceBook Messenger. You can pay over the phone and your receipt will come with your order.
If you are unsure about anything, just ask. The team, now over 10 strong, will be only too happy to help.
