To not be convinced about all the persuading to support small businesses?

[UltimateWednesday]

The big ones fill an important role too and usually became big by being very good at what they do. Often, small businesses are appalling employers. When DH left the Army, he worked for many small contracting firms and the attitude was always put up with terrible working conditions, lack of safety equipment and very long hours or leave, no sick pay etc. Since then he's worked for two multinationals who take staff wellbeing etc seriously.

DS1 works for McDonalds who treat him far better than friends working in small local cafes and their hygiene practices are top notch, when smaller businesses can be hit and miss.

When you find a good small business, they are like gold but a lot of them just aren't very good and the bigger ones are important employers in the communities in which they operate.

Small shops here were definitely verging on profiteering for the items that became in short supply during lockdown. I understand supply and demand and that there may be some price increases but the independent pharmacy was asking £25 for Calpol!

A large % of shares in the really big companies are owned by pension funds and insurance companies, so actually the people you "make rich" are also ordinary people trying to save for their futures.

So what will happen when we have to buy everything through Amazon because they have squeezed all other businesses out of the market? Prices will rise but we'll have nowhere else to go. Choice will be a thing of the past because they'll only sell products with the largest profit margins.

I must point out that supporting small businesses as a customer is a different thing from working there. I'm very happy to buy stuff and go to local cafes etc, but I also know from experience that working there would be a nightmare. I think it's possible to do one without the other.

And yes, there is the issue of supporting small businesses online, even if they're hundreds of miles away. Not sure what that counts as.

But why would you want to support a business that treats its staff abysmally?

Big restaurant chains are definitely far worse than small indies! Just look at all the failing chains...Jamie's, Carluccio's, etc. the food is shocking and subpar...all are close to admin!

Even those that are raved about, i.e. Wagamama, Nando's... aren't that good, they're just cheaper and easy. But smaller chains and independents have to provide better quality.

@Iwalkinmyclothing I wondered if someone would mention that, “dance lessons” thing! I was going to say that. I would actually avoid a local business that said that! I don’t care about your daughter’s dance class 🤷🏻‍♀️
I do respond to the money staying in local economy message though.

I work for a big company, I’m treated brilliantly - and my daughter has dance lessons. My husband runs a small business and treats his staff brilliantly - though in non financial ways, as there’s a limit to what people will pay for what they do. He pays more than similar shops locally, and doesn’t earn much more himself.

I use a mix of big businesses, and local.

I use big businesses like Macdonalds, Wetherspoons (I don't want to pay £30 for a lunch out with a friend even though I know they are not the best employer in the world, our local one employs people with learning disabilities as well), and Amazon (a lot, which includes lots of small traders supplying stuff I need).

Local- I do eat local when I want a nice night out, takeaways (our local Chinese seems to have weathered the storm by immediately changing their business model but they were soooo quiet when lockdown started, even though getting food was a reason to go out), local firms like accountants/solicitors. Garden centres are also good round here.

I won't be shopping in the local centre though, it's not economic for me to spend nearly £10 on bus fares to go in, or £5.50 for two or three hours parking, just to buy someone's cheap birthday present. I like quirky shops etc but not enough to pay so much extra for the product and then so much extra to go into town, waste a few hours, and get it myself. I love online shopping and although I do get the odd thing from Etsy, it's mainly chains and Amazon that have the things I want at the right price.

Do we really want to be left with a country full of cloned high streets and nothing else? Where every town is the same and has the same shops, restaurants and cafes?

Because that's what will happen if people don't support small local businesses. They'll all disappear and eventually you'll have no choices left.

[quote Fairyliz]@Hingeandbracket
Agree with this. Do you know any reliable source when I can find out which companies do pay U.K. tax due?[/quote]
It's far from easy - but, fraud aside (which is rare) you can rely on local businesses paying up, because -
1)They can't use transfer pricing to move profits to cheap tax countries and
2)They don't have access to do deals with HMRC (unlike outfits like Vodafone) and make offers to pay - they just have to pay up.

By saying you support local businesses, it’s not about forgetting the big ones either. However, there are people who never support local businesses. Bigger businesses have much more in the bank so they are more secure at this moment in time than small, local businesses that have been closed for 3 months.

Before lockdown, we used a lot of local businesses and have tried to increase that since lockdown where possible. However, we still used the bigger stores too. Our pet shop is a local store, that supports other SMEs throughout their chain with a small number of high, quality, well-known brands. We do 90% of our pet shopping there but we still go to Pets at Home because sometimes our local pet shop doesn’t have what we want or sometimes Pets at Home is just more convenient. We bought most of our fruit and veg at Tesco but we would pick some little bits on the market, which we haven’t been able to do with lockdown as markets have been closed. At the beginning of lockdown we started ordering meat from a catering butcher and if they have capacity, we’ll continue to order from them because we find the quality much better than we were getting at the supermarket. We’re still going to the supermarket though, again mostly out of convenience. To get everything in our supermarket shop from SMEs it would take forever (and cost a fortune).

At the minute, I would rather support our fantastic independent restaurants than Prezzo/Pizza Express. The local branch of our pizza express may go but I’ll still be able to visit pizza express somewhere else in the country. If the whole chain goes, it’s very sad for the people working there but there are any number of Italian/pizza chains that would replace it. If our local pub goes under it’s unlikely that someone will take up that business, the pub may well be turned into a house and we would have no local pub. No more walks along the river and stopping at the pub. The staff, who are all local, would have to travel to get a new job as there is nothing else in our village.

Small shops here were definitely verging on profiteering for the items that became in short supply during lockdown

Yes, DH and I are currently in total disagreement about one particular shop we used to go to all the time. My position is, they whacked the price of a tiny bottle of hand sanitiser up from £1 to £11 and can fuck off if they think I am ever spending a single penny there again, I would rather walk 5 miles or spend more in another shop just to ensure I gave those people nothing. His is, they saw an opportunity to make money which is why people go into business in the first place and none of the reasons we had for using them a lot pre crisis have disappeared.

@Ellisandra yes I think the dance lessons message is very counter productive!

Did anyone watch ‘Back in time for the corner shop’ on BBC recently.
He thing that struck me was that there were shops like these all over the country at one time and very few supermarkets.
They controlled what we bought, set their own prices and has a monopoly in the area. (Sounds familiar?)
They were (more often than not) family firms so weren’t providing jobs for people in the community.

Big companies support communities in many ways. They provide goods/services as do small businesses but they also provide thousands of local people with an income.

Loads of typos there!!

See above, I don't personally care if there's a lack of diverse shops because I don't like shopping as a recreational activity. Lots do though, our local city centre is always packed with people wandering about. I just don't want to go into town paying ridiculous transport costs to buy artisan bread. It's not an interesting or profitable way for me to spend my time. Businesses will change after lockdown, there's just no way around it (I do get delivery artisan bread occasionally though!) Who has time to stroll about with a basket selecting hand-made things? I work f/t, I'm a single parent, this just wouldn't be an efficient or fun use of my spare time.

There's a happy medium for me. I don't buy from Amazon because it's clear they're aiming for a monopoly (at least in the book market) and that's terrible news for everybody. Nobody who loves books should buy from Amazon.

But then I buy from Waterstones instead, not a local independent. Waterstones has a better selection, a reliable delivery service, and good customer service.

I don't like all the whinging about the high street dying, either. High street shops are dying because they don't offer a good experience, certainly nothing to make them more attractive than online shopping. I'm fine with the high street becoming a place for 'experiences' - restaurants, salons, things you can't do from home. Businesses that want to sell objects need to get with the times and go online.

I support businesses I think are worth supporting. Simply being a small business is not enough in itself for me to prioritise spending my money there.

I agree. The dance lesson thing puts me off.
I will continue to support my local supermarket because wIthout them, many, many employees would be without a job (and their children would suffer far more than missing out on dance lessons ffs).

I had a fantastic experience working for a small business; they are not all bad employers. The ethos was all about treating everyone fairly - customers, suppliers and employees. They went above and beyond to help my career development.

I agree with the sentiment that there’s room for both.

Like many others, I think this idea that big business = bad and local business = good is way too simplistic.

Big businesses often employ lots of local people and drive economies in multiple ways. They're more likely to provide decent benefits etc. They also have the ability to offer attractive prices and, in many cases, better service.

Small businesses can be more personal, higher quality etc etc.

But it's a transaction - I don't shop at a local store because I want to help fund someone's ballet lessons.

Years ago, a small deli opened near my slightly dodgy shared accommodation. At the time, at that end of my town there were a few off licenses and that's it. The deli did well and people loved it. Then a small supermarket opened v nearby. The off licenses and corner shops were outraged at how they were losing custoemrs/death of high street etc. But the deli found their business improved because the supermarket attracted more people to the area and those people then would b uy their bread and milk at the supermarket but come to the deli for other stuff.

I used to walk past those corner shops on my way to work in the morning. Milk would be dumped outside by delivery trucks at 5am and no one would be there to take it in for hours. The moment a supermarket arrived, I was happy to buy my milk there, knowing it had strict refrigeration rules etc from suppler to customer

LOcal shops aren't always best.

I support businesses I think are worth supporting. Simply being a small business is not enough in itself for me to prioritise spending my money there. As pp have said, there is no guarantee at all that a small business is a good employer, and I know for myself there is no guarantee that a small business is a supportive contributor to the community. The "if you shop here you are helping a child get dance lessons rather than a CEO get a new Ferrari" type approach to trying to persuade people to patronise small businesses gets on my tits tbh.

Same here. There are a lot of posts on social media saying support small businesses and like I say, our local fb page is full of people endorsing shop local, at any cost. What if the small shop doesn't have what I want, has poor customer service, or is offering the same thing at double the cost? And people that work in sainsburys might still need to pay for dance lessons (as well as their mortgage and bills!!)

I buy cards and some gifts at a local indie shop and their customer service is second to none. I use the local diy shop and pet shop. I rarely eat out in our town but when I do it's always at an independent place rather than a chain. However, like a pp said, I havent got time, nor budget to buy all my groceries from different places, although we do go to an independent butcher. Even if I went to the market for fruit and veg, the bakery for bread, a fishmonger (no idea where the nearest one is) a deli for cheese etc, had milk delivered....I would still need to go to a supermarket for stuff like cleaning products, toilet rolls, tins and dry food.

I do agree with you about lots of small businesses being appalling employers, that's from personal experience

With regards to the chemists profiteering.
Some were. But some were also paying more to their supplier to get stuff.
So I bought a digital thermometer pre lockdown for £4 from my local chemist.
Washed it, broke it and had to buy another.
It was now £10.
What had happened was they had to try different suppliers with varying prices to get them in, because they wanted to make sure people had what they needed.

We have supported our village shop, and bought takeaway meals from a cookery school and a couple of restaurants and have been happy to do this during lockdown. I've learned that artisan bread tends to be extremely hard and cardboardy, so I'm not buying any more of that.

Late last summer we went to look around Frome, with a view to possibly retiring there. It is quite famous for independent shops with lots of crafts and gifty type places. I was quite open to making a few purchases. We were shocked to see how many window displays were dust and in need of a good polish. The shop keepers seemed to have a sense of entitlement and didn't engage or seem interested in our business. I'm not sure how a shop can have a window full of tarnished silver jewellery, dirt glass and the odd dead fly can expect to survive.

Like most things it depends. I used to live in a small town on the Kent coast and commuted to London for work (about 70 mins each way). Tried to find a local hairdresser but the one nearest to me, which I did use a couple of times was only open 9-5 tues-Saturday. Another one had a ‘late night’ until 7. No way could I have got a colour and cut done in less than 2 hours and it was really hard to get Saturday appointments, as there were obviously other people who did what I did. The Supercuts in the shopping centre next to work was open 9-9 so guess which one got my business?

Just seen an ad for Deliveroo suggesting anyone going to their local restaurant when they open again (to eat in), should pay their bill via the Deliveroo app .

I don't understand why people order takeaways or book hotels via these 3rd parties - just order via the business direct so that the business gets the money rather than the online booking agent getting usually a minimum of 15% cut (and sometimes especially in the case of accommodation, up to 35%) for basically doing bugger all.