Novel approach at Eason Cavan

Manager of Eason Cavan Pacelli Lynch is delighted to see the town reopening with familiar faces returning to the high street to shop.

“Sales are quite strong, and more people have switched to supporting local, which is brilliant," he said.

The store has undergone some renovations to provide more space for customers, allowing social distancing to take place, particularly while queuing.

“It’s working well, we did that with a view to full re-opening.”

Despite being deemed essential, Pacelli decided to close the shop in April last year for the health and wellbeing of his staff and customers.

“Everybody was a bit scared, and nobody knew what was coming. Staff were afraid of bringing Covid home to parents and grandparents,” he said of the decision.

He used this time to put safety measures in place and is happy to be open since May of last year.

Noticing that “people were still a bit afraid to come out", the Eason team decided to put a WhatsApp service in place where people could send in their schoolbook list and collect it, or have it delivered when it was ready.

“We started that for our regular customers who may have been a little bit nervous about coming in and that went very well.”

Cavan has generated several bookworms throughout the lockdown as Pacelli is happy to reveal that “certain departments were very strong” including school books and novels.

He said sales in school books last year surpassed any other year, despite the shift to online learning.

Pacelli detailed that, in the past, there have been trials done in schools to introduce iPads instead of books, however they realised that the quality of education among students had decreased.

“When you have a student trying to learn something from an iPad, it just doesn’t sink in as well as actually reading a book and taking notes with a pen and paper,” he said.

“There is a switch back to school books and there is a massive switch back to the general book.”

Similarly, he reported that “book sales have never been as strong,” diminishing all predictions that there “wouldn’t be a paperback book left in the country".

“There is a happy medium there and I think we’re actually reaching that happy medium,” he explained that he believes technology and the “old tried and tested ways of paper and pen are coming to a balance".

10% off

The only place books are going is off Eason Cavan’s shelves with 10% off on school books for the summer and a special discount on the ‘Summer Reads’ books.

“People heading off on their holidays can grab their summer reads at a reduced price," he encouraged.

Pacelli is very thankful to loyal customers who gave their support throughout the pandemic. In return, Eason Cavan has continued to support local organisations such as clubs and charities.

“The person who comes to our shop sponsors me, so I will sponsor them,” he said.

He has no doubt that fellow businesses in the town will “bounce back” now their doors have re-opened.

“We are willing to do whatever we can to support our colleagues who were unfortunate enough to have to shut down,” he assured.

He praised the local government who have “waived the commercial rates” last year and this year to ease pressure on businesses.

“We wish everybody all the success that they need,” he concluded.