With the continued easing of lock down measures, things are slowly returning to normal. This week schools started to re-open and even more year groups start back next week. Whilst lock down has been on we have been closing early in order to carry out deliveries to local customers who were self isolating or just could not get to us. With kids going back to school, customers will want us to be there after schools close so they can shop or pick up orders on their way home. We are also seeing a drop off in the amount of free home delivery orders in the afternoons as more people are coming to us to shop so we are now in a position to extend the opening hours to pre-covid times (remember them, it seems a lifetime ago).
Our new opening hours are as follows from Monday 07/09/2020
Monday 1pm – 5:30pm
Tuesday 10am – 5:30pm
Wednesday 10am- 5:30pm
Thursday 10am – 5:30pm
Friday 10am – 5:30pm
Saturday10am – 5:30pm
Sunday – CLOSED
Bank Holidays – CLOSED
Customers using the FREE local home delivery service will be pleased to hear we will be keeping this on for the foreseeable future. Obviously deliveries will be later in the day now as we won’t be starting until 5:30pm. We are happy to provide this free service but would ask those customers that are able to visit the store to do so as it really does stretch our limited and rather ageing (me) work force. Of course some of the items we sell are rather bulky and we are happy to continue to deliver these.
As part of the governments relaxing of lock down measures and attempts to prevent a second spike in corona virus infections, face masks will have to be worn in shops from Friday 24/07/20. In response to this latest change in regulations we have updated our corona virus proceedures.
All customers will have to wear a mask to come in the shop from Friday until further notice. We appreciate that some people are exempt. However we have no way of checking if someone is in one of the exempt categories or not, so this is a very difficult situation for staff to manage. To keep it fair to everyone and to avoid any argument, only customers wearing masks will be able to come inside the shop. Exempt customers will be served at the door or can use our FREE home delivery service as most exempt customers (not all) are more at risk from the virus anyway and staying home would be safer for them. We have posted the following note on the door for anyone who does not receive a message before hand, although it has been widely reported in the media anyway.
The wearing of masks does reduce the risk of spreading the virus so it also allows us to let more customer groups in the store at a time (currently limited to one customer group). However we will still be limiting the total number of customers in at any one time, at our discretion. Due to this we are still not allowing general members of the public in to just look at animals with no intention of making a purchase.
In the last few weeks, as lock down measures have been eased and more people are out and about we have had too many non customers being abusive and aggressive to staff. We have been told to F off by an actual customer when he was asked to wait until the lady at the counter had left before coming in, had abuse hurled at staff when people have come in to kill time and have not been allowed to look at the animals as we have had genuine customers outside waiting, had grown men push past staff and shove their face next to them whilst they were feeding the reptiles, just to get a better look and then storm out when asked to maintain a safe distance. The list is getting longer every day. We have always had a zero tolerance policy to abuse of staff and anyone behaving in this manner will be leaving immediately. The virus has not gone away and in order to stay open we must follow government guidelines no matter what the public thinks of its efficacy or even what we think ourselves. It is a difficult situation for retail staff to find themselves in and we will not be engaging in arguments as to whether or not a mask is necessary. Staff do not have to wear masks under the regulations but to make genuine customers more comfortable and to head off the “why should I when you’re not” comments from the non customers; we will be wearing masks as well when customers are present.
Thank you in advance for your understanding as we all try to come to terms with the change in requirements.
Fortunately we have been able to keep our Gloucester pet shop open throughout the lock down period. We have done this by monitoring government advice, customer behaviours and expectations and especially the needs of those in our community particularly at risk from the virus. As the situation has evolved we have adjusted our opening times, provided new services and restricted non essential sales.
At the weekend the situation changed again and in view of this and changes to the products we can offer (livestock), the associated welfare needs of this livestock and changes in our customers’ behaviours, we have made further adjustments to our opening hours to cope.
A few weeks ago we reduced our opening hours to 2pm closing. This was to enable us to do FREE local delivery. A lot of our customers could not or would rather not come to us during the peak of the pandemic. We had also stopped selling animals (non essential) and actually had very few left in stock. Feeding, watering, cleaning, health checking and monitoring of the livestock is actually what takes up most of the time in the business. We were therefor able to close to do the deliveries because of the time saved by not having a lot of livestock in. As I posted below, this has now changed and we are selling animals again and so we need this time back.
Also many of our customers now feel more able to come to us and actually prefer it because they can browse the shop better than they can the website. Quite a lot like the excuse to get out after weeks of being shut in. It helps them that they can do this safely because of the control measures we already had in place in our Gloucester pet shop in the period prior to lock down. These measures, allowing social distancing remain in place. This has reduced the demand for FREE local delivery, enabling us to reduce the time spent on this service. It is still available to those requiring it but we will be starting the deliveries later in the day. In order to ensure we can still get to all the customers that really do still need us to deliver we have increased the minimum order from £5 to £10. This is to hopefully reduce the amount of deliveries further (we were delivering to some very local customers who weren’t self isolating every other day with orders a couple of pence over the minimum each time).
With the reduced time for the deliveries we have also introduced a delivery schedule, to avoid delivering to opposite ends of the patch on the same night and wasting most of the available time in one long journey. We will continue to monitor the situation and make changes if any of this causes our customers any issues.
The new schedule for FREE local delivery from our Gloucester pet shop is below along with a couple of sensible conditions.
Property must be sack truck assessible. We will leave the order at the front door of the main property, telephone the contact number given (or knock, or both) and wait until someone collects the package. We will make only one delivery attempt. If you are not in, or do not answer, the order can be collected from our shop from the following working day onward. If you can do orders to collect please do so as delivery numbers will be limited for the time being. Click and collect is available on our web store but FREE local delivery orders MUST be done by telephone on 01452 501882 and paid for in advance by card. Sorry, no cash on delivery. Cash purchases can only be done in store.
Minimum order £10 Orders must be in by 3pm for same day delivery.
As the lockdown continues and the government continues to encourage everyone to stay at home as much as possible we have decided to do our bit to help. As of today we are re-introducing our FREE local delivery service for ALL customers.
We used to offer this service from our last premises but had to withdraw it following a spinal injury and subsequent serious illness that left me unable to lift anything (or even to stand at one point) and impeded my mobility. In order to enable us to bring the service back Billie will have to do the deliveries and that means we have to close the shop early each day to do it.
From today we have introduced new reduced opening hours to enable us to carry out deliveries (and supplier collections) in the afternoons. The new hours are as follows:-
Monday 13:00 – 1600
Tuesday 10:00 – 14:00
Wednesday 10:00 – 14:00
Thursday 10:00 – 14:00
Friday 10:00 – 14:00
Saturday 10:00 – 14:00
FREE local delivery will be available for ALL orders over £5 to the following postcodes:- GL1, GL2, GL3, GL4 GL50, GL51 (that’s Cheltenham and Gloucester). Please telephone your order to 01452 501882 before 14:00. If it is a stock item we will deliver that day or the next. If it is not something we usually stock (or is currently out of stock) we will deliver it when the order arrives at the shop. We will still be OPEN everyday to receive deliveries and for those customers who still wish to visit the shop. Please note that all orders for the FREE delivery must be placed by telephone and paid for by card at the time of ordering. We cannot do cash on delivery at this time.
If you give us your contact number we can call you just before we arrive then knock and leave the item on our doorstep for you to come out and retrieve it before we leave. Alternatively we can leave it in a previously agreed secure area at the customers risk. Everyone should be home (that’s kind of the point of doing this) so we will only attempt one delivery. If we cannot get a response we will return the item to the shop for collection by the customer. Of course click and collect is still available on our website and by telephone. This system has been working well up to this point.
We are already doing FREE delivery to the vulnerable members of our community and we have reduced the minimum order value for this service to £5 to make it even easier for them to shop. The shop early closing is just to carryout the large volume of deliveries we are getting and expect to see increase. We are very busy and cannot cope with the deliveries with the shop still open and needing staffing. Please note this delivery service is for essential items so we will not be delivering animals. We insist that customers come to the shop to view animals before purchasing anyway and have suspended most animal sales during the current crisis.
So for FREE local delivery call 01452 501882before 14:00. If you call after 14:00 we will be out delivering so will have to call you back when we are in the shop, which won’t be until the next working day.
We have noticed in the last couple of days that there has been an increase in sales to individual customers. Customers that usually buy one bag of dog food a month are buying two or three, customers that usually buy three boxes of locusts are getting six oir eight. Obviously this is so that if they are forced to self isolate in the event of them catching Corvid 19, they can be sure they have enough supplies in for their animals. Whilst this is understandable it has meant that some regular customers are finding that their normal supplies are not on the shelf when they need them and although it only takes us a few days to restock and we have no issues with any suppliers, it does lead to more people panickling that they are going to be without.
In an attempt to both alleviate the need to “stock up” and to help out if any of our customers should actually need to self isolate (i.e. people that do have or are suspected to have the virus or vulnerable groups such as the elderly) we are introducing free home delivery for anyone who has had to go into quarantine. If you are genuinley having to self isolate and cannot get out to buy supplies, call us on 01452 501882. You can order and pay over the telephone (subject to a minimum order value of £10), we will then deliver to your house, give you a call to tell you we are there and leave the product at your door for you to collect when we have gone. No need for any contact.
Please note, this service is only for genuine cases of self isolation. We are a small family business and are not currently set up to do a full home delivery service at the moment due to my own on going health conditions. If you are not self isolating we have a large FREE carpark at our shop in Hucclecote. We just want to do our bit to help out those unable to make it to us because of the current Corona Virus situation and to reduce the impulse to bulk buy and spread the available supplies amongst all our customers. Thank you in advance for not abusing this service.
Angell Pets March 2017 offers are now in store and also available on line. We have, once again done a price comparison with our leading competitors where possible. Not everyone stocks the huge range we do so we can only compare where they list the product. We notice again that even when these products are not on our monthly offers, our prices are still way below places like Pets At Home.
We have an extremely popular FREE local delivery service to Gloucester, Cheltenham and Painswick (and a small charge for deliveries to Stroud). We are able to keep this service FREE by doing the deliveries ourselves after shop hours during the week. The downside to this is that if I am not available then bulky orders requiring the van may be disrupted.
Unfortunately, despite my constant denials, I am getting older and every now and then bits of me have to be repaired. I find I have to go into hospital on the 17th of November for some running repairs (quite literally – all that jogging is not always a good thing) to one of my knees. This will mean I will be unable to drive for a short period and we do not have any other drivers available that can drive the van..
We have put alternative vehicles and drivers on stand by, so we will be able to deliver all but the largest of your orders. Unfortunately there is no way I can make a 5′ vivarium fit in a Ford Ka (and I wouldn’t be able to lift it for a few weeks anyway) so any bulky orders will I’m afraid have to wait.
If you think you need to place any bulky orders (i.e. over two 15kg bags) around this time could I please ask you try to get your order in before the 16th of November. Any large orders placed after this for the following couple of weeks may have to be delivered over successive nights as they just won’t fit in the vehicles we will have available.
My apologies for any inconvenience this may cause but I cannot put off the necessary operation any longer or I’ll end up having to have a new knee and I’ve grown attached to the one I’ve got over the years, despite the torn cartilage and cyst under the knee cap.
Our FREE local delivery service continues to grow in popularity. So much so that we are delivering to up to 20 customers a night Monday to Friday.
In order to be able to keep this service free we have to be able to do the deliveries ourselves. With our free delivery area covering Gloucester, Cheltenham and Painswick we have reached the limits to what we can achieve in one night. A couple of times now we have not finished the round until 10pm – too late for most customers.
So to keep the times sensible for our customers and to ensure we can complete the rounds we are introducing a delivery schedule for each area covered. By concentrating the deliveries in smaller areas and not having to drive from Hardwicke to the other side of Cheltenham in one round, we can ensure we get to all our customers and keep the service FREE by not having to employ an outside driver.
The new schedule comes into effect on Monday 14th of September and is as follows.
This schedule ensures our customers do not have to wait more than two working days for a delivery and is weighted to the areas where most deliveries are. We hope this does not inconvenience any of our customers but it really is a case of the service being a victim of its own success.
FREE delivery is becoming so popular now that we have had to reduce our opening hours on Mondays to accomodate the orders from the weekend.
We offer FREE delivery on any order for Gloucester and Cheltenham post codes (GL1,2,3,4 50, 51, 52 and 53). Free delivery is usually weekdays, in the evening, after the shop closes. Orders placed Saturday or Sunday are normally delivered on Monday (assuming items are in stock). Obviously this means that we generally have quite a few deliveries to fit in on Monday evening.
Due to the increased workload we are having to close at 5pm on Mondays to enable me to get these deliveries completed by a reasonable hour. Free delivery is more spread out during the week so I can still manage to get round after closing at 6pm.
To order you can call us on 01452 372087 on visit us online at http://www.angellpets.co.uk/. There is no minimum order value for FREE delivery.
This summer we have a limited number of quality wooden tortoise runs on offer at 10% off. These runs are available in store at our Abbeymead shop or on line in our webstore. Delivery to our local area is FREE and low cost to the rest of the UK.
These attractive runs would suit any mediterranian or russiantortoise or even guinea pigs. They would not be sutiable for most rabbits due to the lower height. They measure 120cm long x 100cm wide x 30cm tall. The top has a double lift up lid. One side (2/3rds) is mesh covered for the tortoise to bask in the sun and absorb those UV rays. The other side is covered with a felted wood top to provide a hide for your animals. There is a divide across the run to provide more protection to the hide area and help the animal feel secure.
Stocks are really limited, so do get your order in quickly to avoid disappointment.
