All over the world, standby generators can be found hiding in commercial properties, waiting for their moment to shine. In the unfortunate event of a power cut, the standby generator will kick in and normal power will be resumed.

One of the most popular places that standby generators can be seen are; Supermarkets. Busy no matter what time of the week you go, supermarkets can be found in most towns and cities across the UK. They are responsible for feeding local mouths and making sure any thirst quenching desires are seen to also. If the power was to go down for whatever reason, there would likely be a lot of unhappy customers. Not only this, the supermarket in question could lose hundreds, if not thousands of pounds in the process.

With that thought in mind, it’s a good idea for all supermarkets to invest in a back-up generator, should the worst happen.

Why Standby Generators are Essential for Supermarkets

In this article, we take a look at the 4 main reasons why we believe all supermarkets should invest in a standby generator.

Reduction in Downtime

For any business, downtime can be detrimental. When the power is down, businesses can suffer greatly from the impact this has. When speaking strictly about supermarkets, there are so many things to worry about. Employees are left doing nothing, whilst still getting paid and customers are left in the dark with no-where to go but out. When this happens, they will likely turn to another supermarket to get their weekly shop, which could lead to the loss of a valued customer. Now imagine if the power was to fail at peak time over the weekend for example. One customer could be more like a hundred customer’s.

To put this into context, if each customer were to spend £50 on average each week and 100 customers were to walk out of your shop during a power cut, your losses for that particular spell would be in the region of £5000. Now imagine that these customers never return again after finding a new supermarket that they love (where the power never goes down). Losses over time could be closer to the millions, let alone the thousands – and your competitor supermarket will be laughing close by as your customer’s tootle over to them.

Having a standby power generator can protect your business and the money it makes each day.

supermarket generators

Save the FOOD!

Downtime is one thing, but what about the food? Customer’s aren’t spending money any more and now the food will soon be ruined. All the frozen food can’t be re-frozen and the fridge food will soon be unworthy to be sold.

With a standby generator you can protect the loss of food when power goes down. Within a matter of seconds power will be restored, with little to no impact on the temperatures of the fridges and freezers you have in store. Your lovely fresh food will still be fit and ready for the shelves and your customer’s will be glad that they don’t need to look elsewhere.

Security, Security, Security

Your lighting, tills, CCTV cameras and door alarms are all powered by electricity, so if your power goes down, you’re left in a tricky situation. Customer’s can steal without getting caught and if they are left in the dark, they are also at risk of hurting themselves.

The health and safety of your customers should be a priority. Putting the procedures in place to protect them is wise, especially if you care about their welfare, as we all know you will. A standby generator is an excellent starting point.

Boss, the tills aren’t working…

If the tills aren’t working then you won’t be able to take any money this way. People wishing to pay for their weekly food shop in store with hard earned cash or with a credit/debit card won’t be able to. They will either return home to order their food online or pop over to your competitor across the road, which is something you don’t want to see.

Let’s assume the local area is having a power problem and all power is down. Sure, you might not lose any customers to your competitor, but you might be missing out on opportunity to take more cash over the tills. People with power down at home might look to head out to the shops for food or drink and they might be heading your way. Without tills and without power, they won’t be able to pay you for your services (which will be no doubt be considered to be quite abysmal by this point). A pitch black store with ruined food, no working tills and lingering staff, means only one thing – a damaged reputation!

It’s not just supermarkets that could be effected by a power outage. Pubs, restaurants and other commercial environments will be affected in similar ways should power go down for whatever reason.

With all things considered, surely the price of a standby generator is small in comparison to the damage a power cut could cause?