To say go and support your local independent businesses

[Nutmuncher]

Just that really, retail is in absolute dire straits right now pretty much across the board. The big chain stores are better positioned to fight on through but your small independent shops in your local high street such as butchers, bakeries, antiques shops, homewards, art galleries, book shops, florists, coffee shops are all struggling and need our help no matter how small that may be.

That gorgeous tea room, cute card and gift shop, beautiful florist or dreamy book shop will be gone unless WE start using them as much as possible. Small businesses desperately need help and the true saviours will not be in the form of billionaires or politicians, it’s down to us to make sure they survive. Switch up your Starbucks for a local coffee, buy a bunch of flowers from your florist not M&S. Buy a print/ painting from your local small gallery instead of an IKEA picture, beautiful greetings cards can often be found in them too. I for one don’t want a high street full of vape shops, barbers and nail salons because they’re the only ones able to afford the rent on the units.

Your small switch up no matter how insignificant it may seem could make a huge difference to someone’s livelihood.

A B&M has opened up in the town near my beautiful village of tea rooms and art galleries. I am lucky in that my village still has a butcher, baker, thriving pubs, clothes shop and two delis but the B&M in the adjacent town is really lowering the tone.

Cheap food making the fat even fatter and Chinese imported home ware full of chemicals. It really is dire.

I think this is all quite contradictory - barbers etc need a livelihood; do bakers, florists, baristas etc not need or deserve a livelihood?

And why are you even buying cards from anywhere if people begrudge receiving them?! I'd much rather you spend £4 on a coffee for yourself that you enjoyed, and supported the local cafe owner vs send me a crappy 79p card.

Just touching on this bit of your reply -
You don’t have to be rich to buy from an independent business as I’m sure many of the poor independent business owners will agree.

We had a local, independent butcher and hardware shop, both have closed in the last 5 years, I did use both at times because they were convenient, and yes the quality and service better, and I'd absolutely not begrudge paying more for that regularly - if I had it, but I didn't so my compromise is getting what I need within my budget, at less quality and poorer service, or getting less than I need within my budget.

Sometimes less had to do because of circumstances, but that's unsustainable long term.

I definitely tried this particularly during lockdown as I was working from home and could get into town lunchtime. Bakery/butcher is fine, and have regular consistent hours.
Green grocer now only opens at certain times which unfortunately aren’t ones that work for me. Bookshop is a hobby business and has a sign on the door “not open today” more often than its open sign.

Local gift shop will randomly close early for random reasons - three weeks ago because of heavy rain (not floods, just biblical weather). New plant shop has been open maybe six weeks but closes every time they need to do a stock run, so you basically have to check their social media pages before visiting.

A few coffee shops regularly close “to have a break” one doesn’t open on Monday’s all close by 4pm.

But this is the problem, they won't because nobody is using them. As romantic as the notion sounds it's just basic economics and supply and demand.

Agree, these shops will be gone soon and then we will miss them

I don't understand this attitude that we are morally obliged to use local independent shops. Why? Why shouldn't I use the shop that offers me the best value for money?
If these shops are so good, they will survive, if not they'll shut. I don't owe them anything.

I definitely wouldn't miss them!

The problem with this sentiment is it completely misses the fact that our needs and preferences are different. It is not on the public to prop up i dependent businesses. It is for those businesses to provide a service that is desirable at an appropriate price point.

There's a lot around this that is my about poor town planning. There is a village near me that has a lot of independent stores (mixed in with chains) and it is thriving. Why vs other similar high streets?

1 it is, frankly, smack bang in the middle of a fairly wealthy, solidly middle class area of Surrey.
2 the streets and pavements are wide enough for easy walking and traffic to flow.

1. There is parking, both on street (without restricting traffic or pedestrians) and in a couple of parking lots.
2. It has a large waitrose that attracts people from a wider area, who then stay to do more "local" shopping.
3. Similarly, it has all the essentials like chemistry and optometrist and dentist and nails - and a mix of those too eg boots optometrist and independent.
4. Local shops are NOT massively over charging and service is routinely excellent. The local butcher for example does have a lot of meat that IS more expensive (and better qualiry) but also has a good selection of specials and every day basics at prices only slightly higher than the supermarkets. You can pre order, get advice, or shop early then collect your meat when you are ready to go home. Ditto, I have at least three handbags from the lovely independent with the friendly owner and a selection of bags from.super cheap and cheerful to designer-lite.

We used to.have a butcher in.our village. He was expensive, quality was average and he acted like he was doing you a favour every time you stepped through the door. Can't say I was devastated when he closed down and a chicken shop.opened.instead.

Why would people miss things they never use?

I never use our local shops - the opening times don't suit me, parking is horrendous and the prices just aren't justifiable when you get the same thing for half the price on the internet without even leaving your sofa.

It's all very well saying "use it or lose it" but honestly, I wouldn't care if we lost it 🤷‍♀️

I am happy to use local cafes though, because they provide good quality local food at affordable prices and provide good service as well. I was just out for breakfast this morning - the waitress remembered us, the food was good and affordable and the service great.

But our local shops just aren't like that, so why would I waste my time and money going to them?

Dear small shop owners, this isn’t the 1950s. If you want my business, you need to offer more flexible hours—especially during or after commuting times. A Monday-to-Friday, 10–4 schedule just isn’t practical. Convenience matters.

It is for those businesses to provide a service that is desirable at an appropriate price point.

I think part of the issue for smaller businesses is doing this is quite hard, and getting harder with overheads increasing and not having the necessity or buying power of large businesses that can get goods cheaper per unit because they buy so much, that can weather storms by selling off premises because they have a lot of them.

I can see and understand that and working for a smaller business I can see the effects it has on a business and how that filters down to me personally, but as said it's not really up to me to support any business to my own detriment, including the one I'm working for.

Exactly.

It's a gorgeous sunny day today, but the only shops open in our coastal town are Tesco and the corner shop, plus the cafes. Nowhere else has bothered to open - they then complain that nobody shops there.

They also shut on Wednesday afternoons and many shut at 1pm on Saturdays - some don't even open until 10

You can't expect to successfully run an independent business working six hours a day and closing for lunch!

Most opening hours are dictated by the local council.

Heh.

Ex niche independent business owner here.

Knew my market very well, located on a major bus route, plenty of community ties.

Threw in the towel nearly two years ago.

Realised the writing was on the wall when certain huge online platforms started exploding selling my stock direct to the public cheaper than I could buy it from wholesalers.

People "loved" the aesthetic, the ambience, even me allegedly, but I had some photograph items on my shelves and Google them to find them cheaper on line in front of my face.

I posted online all the time, yet perversely the more effort I put into that, the less footfall I had. Even a service I provided face to face got overtaken by the virtual equivalent. And my niche isn't that obscure, it's extremely popular.

When I finally closed up it was because I was nearly ten grand in debt from trying to believe it was just a year long, then 18 month dry patch, and if I just manifested hard enough (hahaha) it would all come right. It didn't, and spending 8 -10 hours on the premises lucky to see two people or take a fiver pretty much broke me.

Was it me? Online competition? COL crisis? Fallout from Covid? Geopolitics? Bad luck? All of the above in different proportions no doubt.

Now I'd love to support other local businesses, but losing my own livelihood means I can't afford to.

It's a catch 22, and the cynic in me thinks it's engineered because corporations are hand in glove with politicians to feather the nests of the already wealthy even more.

Cynical, bitter? Yep.

It's time that stops me, not money. I don't like going shopping and I resent wasting part of my weekend on it.

@Potsofpetals how can that be the case when some shops open 8-6 but the ones next door only bother doing 11-4?

Even if you can’t afford shop in local indies all the time, maybe think about giving yourself a percentage. So if you buy all your books on Amazon, tell yourself you’ll buy 25% in a local bookshop and use the library more.

(As a side note, please don’t buy books from supermarkets, that’s the worst place to get them from! They interfere a lot with publishers’ creative freedom.)

There are a lot of independent shops where I live, some I use, some I don't.
There is a gift/card shop which I use regularly and is generally busy. The cards are only marginally more expensive (and usually nicer) than the supermarket but definitely cheaper than WHsmith or Clinton.
I buy cakes at an indie stall or bakery, if i am passing, because they are nicer than mass produced. We don't eat out often but we always eat at independent restaurants rather than chain. There is a bookshop that presents as if it's a local shop but is actually waterstones.

I use use the hardware shop but in reality the frequency I need something from there is pretty low....so I'm not popping in weekly, It's a really good shop and has all sorts of useful stuff....that you only need every few months!

But B and M sells things like cleaning products, San pro and toiletries eg essentials, what's wrong with that?

I can't afford to shop this way for my general shopping, however we have decided this year that all gifts we buy for family, Mother's Day, birthdays etc will be 1) edible/consumables and 2) from British independents. So far we have sent pies to my dad, and vegan brownies to my brother.

I think it's a case of specific niches rather than always going indie or mass market. I always try to buy kids books for presents in a lovely bookshop because it's showing the ones that are a bit different and unusual. I'll buy stuff from lovely gift shops if it's just right. I'll shop at the posh butchers for a special occasion. Just because you can't do it all the time doesn't mean it isn't worth trying sometimes.

Trouva is also a good find. My local boutiques are mostly on there and I can shop online, whenever I want, then get it delivered to my house with the things I stumbled across from lovely boutique's elsewhere.

Just because you can't do it all the time doesn't mean it isn't worth trying sometimes.

I do agree with this, but often it's just not possible. We have shops here that are only open 10-4 during the week and that shut at weekends and bank holidays - they then complain they don't get enough custom and that they're "dead" on random Tuesday afternoons in November - I'm not sure what they expect, tbh.

Like I said upthread, it's a gorgeous sunny day today - blue skies, 18 degrees - perfect for a lovely wander in our little coastal town, but nowhere has bothered to open! The cafes etc. are all absolutely heaving but the shops are missing out.

I'm really lucky -where I live we have an independent butcher, fishmonger, greengrocer, baker, off licence and bookshop as well as the rest all within a ten minute walk. The greengrocer butcher and fishmonger are all competitively priced, partly I suspect because they've been there a long time and have had time to iron out any wrinkles in their business model, and partly because there are also half a dozen supermarkets within a mile, and really good quality. There are queues at each of them every Saturday morning. The baker is pricey but fair and seems to have built up a loyal following. the off licence sells Iain mellis cheese, and most of them also stock a range of groceries. I find I'm spending less by shopping small,, not being tempted by all the extras in the supermarket, wasting less food because I'm buying things as I need them and it generally tastes better probably because much if it is sourced locally and doesn't spend so long in transit. But I'm not cooking for a family so it's a lot easier - I can change plans immediately to accommodate what ever looks best and I'm on flexitime so I can fit shopping in at lunchtime or in between meetings and work earlier/later.

A lot of us can't afford it thoigh.

I'm not going to shop where I have to pay for parking and they may not have what I need to get. I'm also time poor.