I had a telephone conversation with Sameeia Ishaque, whose father runs The Corner Shop in London’s St John’s Wood. The store is open from 8am till 10pm and he is keen to get the Lottery. She reckons that he has contacted Camelot roughly eight times by letter and email over the past two years with phone calls on top, but has had no response.
She adds: “We are a five minutes’ walk from the famous Abbey Road Studios. We have a lot of tourists who visit requesting a lottery ticket. I hope this will add to our positive factors.”
I don’t usually try to get involved when it comes to Camelot because I know I have no influence whatsoever, but as it had been a long time since I’d tackled the subject of criteria, I thought I’d give it a go.
Spokeswoman Sarah Icken comments: “Although I can’t comment on the specifics of this case, I can provide some background information and hopefully useful next steps.
“In selecting our retail partners, we use a fair and rational selection policy that takes into account more than 40 criteria - including population of an area, current and projected sales, footfall, store size, access, potential demand, and the enthusiasm of staff - as well as wider market trends and changes in the retail landscape.” (There was a fair bit more in this vein.)
She adds: “In terms of the location of this shop, I can confirm that there are 10 National Lottery outlets within a half-mile radius - the closest is about a five-minute walk away. That said, if we believe there is sufficient demand in a particular area for a terminal, we reserve the right to choose retailers close to one another if we think this will maximise returns.”
She confirms that there is no waiting list for a terminal. Selection doesn’t work on a ‘first come, first served’ basis.
She concludes: “The best advice that I can give Ms Ishaque’s father is to formally register his interest by completing and submitting the form on our dedicated retailer website, www.lotteryretailer.co.uk. This form includes fields to input opening hours, number of customer transactions per week, and so on. His details will then be added to our database of potential retailers, which we assess on a regular basis.”
If circumstances ever change, then the form should be updated.
And finally, here’s an interesting update from Camelot. “We are relaunching the registration area of the site in the coming weeks and this will allow Ms Ishaque’s father to include even more information about his store, including the ability to upload images of the shop.”
