Page 6 - PN131 Demo

Shortened business hours over the weekend 周末缩短营业时间 6 - popularnews 131 POPULAR Bookshop though, as they then had to meet ITE College West’s urgent need for office and school supplies to ensure that ITE’s brand new headquarters and facilities were ready for operation. Mabel and her team responded promptly and stocked up on a diverse range of stationery, copier papers and ink cartridges that were essential for the running of ITE’s headquarters and main campus. Recalling her experiences in those early days, Mabel revealed that she and her team had observed that there were two distinctive groups of customers. “During campus office hours, the students and staff of ITE College Central would drop in mainly to get their schooling and campus supplies,” she said. “But after school is over for the day, we see many working professionals and part-time ITE students coming in to purchase a variety of merchandise, like books, CDs and gift ideas, as they are heading home after work and study.” To provide more value to all their customers, the ITE-POPULAR Bookshop adopts an “Outside-In Approach”, listening to the feedback provided by their customers, as well as the ITE students working part-time at the bookshop. Popular products such as best-selling English books, music CDs and novelty gift ideas have been included on the shelves. “The limited space in our small bookshop means efficient planning was critical to ensure that every bit of the available retail space is fully utilised and optimised with effective merchandising plans, to push for high inventory turnover,” Mabel said. Interestingly, the best-selling product in the ITE-POPULAR Bookshop is the A4- sized copier paper. You can see the stacks of these copier paper through the glass walls of the bookshop! These stacks are the result of the meticulous effort of Mabel and her staff in consideration of their customers’ well-being. The staff at the ITE-POPULAR Bookshop would ensure that the cartons of copier paper are consistently replenished back to waist level so that their customers do not have to lift the heavy carton of copier paper off the floor directly as each carton can weigh as much as 12 kilogrammes. With such care and dedication, it is no surprise that the ITE-POPULAR Bookshop is the top performer among all of POPULAR’s tertiary bookstores! Down but Never Out The global COVID-19 pandemic has turned 2020 into a very unusual year for the ITE-POPULAR Bookshop. Designated as an essential business, the ITE-POPULAR Bookshop was allowed to resume its business operations on 2 June 2020, when Singapore moved into the first phase of reopening after the two-month Circuit Breaker measures initiated by the government in April 2020 to curb the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus. Those measures resulted in the closure of all non-essential businesses and retail stores across the entire island-state. As the ITE-POPULAR Bookshop resumed business, the staff ensured