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Shopping

A Little Piece of Home Abroad

(Sun 19 April 2009)

Craving crumpets or Hershey bars? Your local expat shop is the place to stock up on goodies from home. Amanda van Mulligen talks to the owner of one such shop in The Hague.

Amidst the boxes of English tea and cans of exotic flavoured soup in her storeroom, Kelly Kelly (yes, her name really is Kelly Kelly) explains that her journey from an account manager in the corporate world to owner of Kelly’s Expat Shop has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Surprisingly, given her career choice, Kelly is Dutch-locally born in The Hague. Although her mother is Dutch, her father came to the Netherlands from England, giving her a link to the expat world. His influence on her as a child led her to appreciate the “English” things in life, and his influence on her as an adult has been no less marked.

Her father told her on numerous occasions that her previous job, looking after fashion retailer accounts in Europe, required her to travel too much, keeping her away from her young children and husband. His unexpected death in January last year caused Kelly to rethink her life. For three months, grief debilitated her. She emerged on the other side, determined to heed her father’s words.

She quit her job of twelve years to open an expat shop in her father’s memory. Armed with her business plan, she went to the bank. Without even a glance at her presentation, the bank revealed they did not back supermarket start-ups. Determinedly she called the manager and set up a second meeting. This time they listened to her presentation, looked at her business plan, and within three days gave her the green light for her specialist grocery business.

Within no time, Kelly’s Expat Shop opened its doors in the Piet Heinstraat in The Hague. She recalled: “I really put it down to my dad looking down on me from above and guiding me through everything because it was amazing how quickly I had this place and signed a rental contract." During the first six months, Kelly toiled to get the business up and running, marketing, listening to her customers and building up a relationship with her suppliers.

Said Kelly: “People were very quick to tell me how to do it, instead of looking at what I had already achieved. People complimented me too of course, but some asked if I thought the business would survive. That made me feel insecure in the beginning. But now I have my answer.”

The biggest challenge facing the expat shop is keeping control of the pricing. “The prices of bread, flour and things like that are increasing all the time with the wholesaler in England. I don’t want to keep adjusting my prices so if I can swallow the loss I will, knowing that the prices will come back down again in a few weeks.”

What Kelly loves most about running a grocery store is her interaction with customers. She explained: “I hate it personally when I go into a shop and they don’t say good morning, or hello. Or when you are at the till and it is just ‘9.95 please’ and there is no interaction.” Her positive attitude to customer service has resulted in an established client base from the local Dutch and international community–notably English, Irish, Australian, American, Scottish and South Africans.

Kelly explained that whilst crumpets, the Aunt Bessie’s range and Ella’s Kitchen organic baby food are definite top sellers, there is a clear trend of basket fillers amongst the Dutch and Irish. “The Dutch come for the scones and clotted cream, the Twinings tea and trays of Irn-Bru. Real Irish sausages are popular with the Irish–they love them. The American products sell well, mainly to the Dutch and Americans.”

Kelly’s Belgian wholesaler owns a white taxicab. Kelly’s husband thought it was such a brilliant idea that he tracked down a black cab for sale in Birmingham, England for £1,000. “We drove it back and I felt like Driving Miss Daisy,” she laughed. “Me in the back and my husband in the front. It was so funny. We were amazed it made it to Holland, but the seller said these cars are designed to drive thousands of miles and never die. It is so much fun to drive. Every time we get in it we giggle.”

The shop’s logo adorns the cab and following the launch of her online shopping service, Kelly now uses it to make grocery deliveries in The Hague and surrounding area. In May, Kelly celebrates her first year in business but instead of planning her anniversary celebrations, she is already busy planning her next business venture, news sure to delight her customers.