What are you buying and why? Retailers at Bestway in Hackney reveal all

Rezzwan Noor
Flash 24,
Bethnal Green

Coke and Lucozade are my two hero drinks and I have special branded fridges for each of them, which does seem to boost sales. I also sell quite a lot of Rubicon drinks, particularly the mango flavoured variant. I've also noticed a surge in sales of pomegranate drinks, which are popular with my Eastern European customers.


Paresh Patel
Mace Express,
Bow

Coca-Cola is a top selling drink for me. It's universally recognised, popular and trusted. I also stock a range of chilled drinks like smoothies and organic juices, which are very popular. I've recently boosted my storage space for soft drinks, and particularly water, so that it's now almost the size of the shop floor itself.


Peter Jaworski
Gourmet Food and Eats, Belgium

I run three small English food and drink stores in Belgium, and we're about to open a fourth in Poland. We sell a wide range of English soft drink brands. The Ocean Spray fruit juices are hugely popular with our customers, as are some of the Scottish mineral water brands. We also sell quite a few chilled tea and coffee drinks.


Yousef Gullali
Max Newsagents,
Hackney

Mineral water is my top selling soft drink, and the Volvic and Evian brands are the two most popular with my customers, who pop in for a drink on the go. Sales of water are sluggish at the moment as they are influenced by the weather, but I'll be stocking up on supplies soon, as I've heard that conditions should improve later in the year.


Mr Singh
CC2 News
Hackney

I sell a wide range of chilled drinks and have two branded chillers which I find boost sales. Anything by Coke is always in demand as it's such a well recognised brand. I also sell large amounts of still mineral water, and have seen quite a substantial increase in sales over the last few weeks as more tourists come to the area.


Terry Nevill
Terry's Off-licence
Bow

Lucozade Sport is my top selling soft drink brand as my store is located just a few hundred yards away from a busy sports centre. The bottles are price marked at 95p which I believe also helps to drive sales. Customers tell me that they trust a product more when it's price marked. Still water brands such as Volvic and Evian are also popular.