HOW TO WIN A STORE

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 16

HOW TO WIN A STORE

Winning a Four Square scholarship is not easy; the competition is stiff. But the prize for a young grocery assistant means ownership of a store. Mr lan Tweedie, owner of the Four Square Merivale Lane Store, is today a happy man with a thriving business as a result of winning a scholarship eight years ago. ,

“Winning a Four Square scholarship means getting your own business. I had no capital and no chance of owning a store before I won the scholarship,” says Mr Tweedie, now aged 40, married, with one child. lan Tweedie was 16 when he began in the grocery trade in 1946, as a full-time junior assistant in an independent grocery in Doyleston, his home town. After three years, Mr Tweedie took a job with Rattrays, working in the firm’s wholesale ware-

house in Christchurch for a year. At times he was relieving in the firm’s retail outlets. He then went back to the Doyleston grocer, Mr C. E. McVeigh, being in charge of the mobile shop that made four rounds of the country districts. He was on the road for four days of each week, serving in the shop on Fridays.

Mr Tweedie did this job for nine years, and thoroughly enjoyed it, learning a great deal both from his experience in the mobile shop and from the guidance of Mr McVeigh. He went on holiday to Australia, and then joined the Four Square shop of Mr R. L. Rossiter in Centaurus Road in 1960. In that year, Mr Tweedie began the Four Square correspondence course for the training of shop assistants with a view to improving his knowledge and skill in the trade and, ultimately, winning a scholarship. But he was single, with itchy feet, and after a year he took off to Great Britain where he had a good look into the grocery business on a

working holiday that lasted 15 months. Early in 1962, Mr Tweedie returned to Christchurch and began working in Mr S. J. Anderson’s Four Square Hopkins Street Store. He took up the correspbndence course where he had left off, attending the practical tests, and sitting the examinations that were the culmination of the year’s work at the Four Square annual shop assistants* convention. “I was nominated by my employer, and there were about a dozen from the advanced senior group in for a scholarship. One to three scholarships a year are awarded in Christchurch, and two were awarded that year,” Mr Tweedie recalled. “I was one of them—and I can remember the thrill to this day when the result was announced. It meant that I would be 100 per cent financed into a store of my own on the most reasonable of terms. I had no capital at all — but I could have my own business.” He said he inquired into the prospects of

six grocery shops, under the guidance of senior executives of Foodstuffs, Limited, and three were selected for closer investigation. “I chose the Merivale Lane store, with the approval and co-operation of senior executives. It was a small corner store. The executives examined the turnover, catchment area, zoning and a score of other factors—they all count. “I think the shop would have been squeezed out of business without the backing and experience of Four Square. I took it over in May, 1963, the second big day of my life. “Between winning the scholarship and taking over the store, I had spent some months in the warehouse of Food-

stuffs and had been a relieving manager in various shops—part of the conditions of being awarded a scholarship. “It stood me in good stead. The shop, at the corner of Merivale Lane and Clissold Street, was a bit small I bought the next door drapery shop, in Clissold Street, and extended the store, modernising the whole with the financial assis-

tance and planning guidance of Four Square. “Owning a grocery store means hard work and long hours—you arrive well before the shop opens and are there for an hour or more after it closes. But you are working for yourself. “It took me six years to freehold my business, but the extension and modernising of the shop made it a longer period than normal. Then I got married soon after I started in my own business—the third big day of my life. “It is a personal ser-

vice business and I know most of my customers by name. My wife, Anne, is a great help behind the scenes and I have a parttime assistant. “It is a sound business and a good business, and just the right size for me. I have the guidance of the Four Square organisation and it keeps abreast not only of New Zealand but also of world-wide trends in the grocery trade. “I am hopeful of getting a trip to Australia, as a Four Square shop owner gets a trip there to study the business every year, being drawn by ballot. “I enjoy my work—and like meeting people. The grocery business has much more to it than outsiders imagine and changes all the time. Mr McVeigh, my first boss, became field representative and publicity officer for the Four Square organisation. He introduced me to Four Square, and I owe a lot to him.”