On The Shop Front

Part of the community

Customer service, product knowledge, adaptability and an eco-friendly ethos are what sets independent retailers Ace Cards and Castlegate Stationers apart and makes them an important part of their West Yorkshire community, as Nish Kanabar explains.

Ace Cards of Wetherby established in 1974, and Castlegate Stationers established in 1979 are both situated in the beautiful market town of Wetherby, West Yorkshire and run by husband and wife Nish and Liz Kanabar, with their team of 11 local staff.

We have a company ethos of stocking locally produced products, and over the last 12 years have transferred a lot of our regular lines to own label, where we have control of quality. There is also great emphasis on eco lines, as we continue to work towards cutting our carbon footprint.

We consciously strive to introduce new environmental initiatives into our stores. Along with the eco products we have introduced, in 2019 we replaced our delivery vehicle with a fully electric one and all our incoming cardboard delivery boxes are recycled. Both stores are fitted with LED lighting and supplied with electricity from a green power company. We also have a recycling facility for used printer inks cartridges.

The last 18 months have been a challenge for all businesses. We were determined to continue to be able to serve our customer’s needs, so during lockdown we set up an ordering system via WhatsApp video, Facebook messenger, Online and the telephone. We then undertook socially distanced door-to-door deliveries. This helped our loyal customers and many new customers get what they needed from both our stores. For people working from home, home schooling and for those folks that were vulnerable and self-isolating, this was an invaluable service.

Looking to the future, we continue to evolve, and we are keen to talk to unique suppliers who want a presence on the High Street. They can get genuine feedback from the ranges they launch onto the market, with instant listing in our stores, and from their point of view saving large sums on focus groups.

Specialist businesses like both our stores have a bright future, as we have the expertise to help customers make the right choices for the products they need. We never knowingly sell products to customers that they do not need. Customer Service is key in our businesses. This along with providing a great range of good quality products will continue to ensure our success. In a community like ours a lot of our customers have been shopping with us for years and have helped to shape us to become the businesses we are today. We have come through the pandemic strong and healthy with both our loyal and new customers and look forward to continuing to serve our community.

“Specialist businesses like both our stores have a bright future, as we have the expertise to help customers make the right choices for the products they need”

Kali Stileman Publishing specializes in design led luxury greetings cards, wrapping papers and tags for children and the young at heart. The growing collection of flat wrapping papers are printed on heavy weight high-quality paper in gorgeous muted colours and they are just celebrating their 100th wrap design, a gorgeous girly paper featuring everything from peapods and poodles to radishes and rainbows. No matter the age or taste, there’s a wrapping paper to suit every style and occasion.

Kali’s favourite wraps have a mini card to match! Printed on linen textured board for a luxurious finish, their trademark ‘tiddly widdlies’ are super alone, but also make fab upmarket gift cards. www.kalistileman.co.uk