There has been a boom in websites and developers supporting local British retailers throughout the lockdowns, with swathes of fantastic community initiatives springing up around Britain and beyond.
The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) is working on a nationwide local shop site. Bira CEO, Andrew Goodacre says the site will “enable retailers to effectively sell online to their local markets, not for huge amounts of profit.
“We’re never going to beat Amazon, we’re never going to be as big as Amazon but perhaps we can compete on a local basis. These online initiatives are providing one of the only lifelines to the UK retail industry, which saw footfall plummet by 80% during the first lockdown and remaining 35% down on last year even after reopening.
Many indies pivoted immediately, says Goodacre, working hard on social media, installing online payments and click and collect services, but thousands face closure. Research carried out in Spring indicated that almost a fifth of the UK’s small businesses were at risk of going bust.
Home & Giftware Magazine spearheaded a number of online initiatives early in the pandemic through our IT development office, helping more than a dozen small shops and brands launch or revamp websites in the covid world of frenetic online shopping.
Berkhamsted pop-up shop, Creative Collective, faced losing thousands of pounds a week – or even every day – in sales when forced to lockdown in November, but we had it up and running online in a matter of days, with the first click and collect orders placed the day their website went live.
Webshop developer, Denre Bruins, said: “Covid-19 brought a lot of uncertainty to businesses because their traditional channels of doing business, physical exhibitions, bricks & mortar shops and markets, disappeared. With almost every household in the UK having internet connection and almost everyone in the UK stuck at home, it makes sense to approach potential customers through online channels. This is what we focus on enabling through every means possible.
“We massively accelerated our efforts back in March when one of our clients, the British Craft Trade Fair, was forced to cancel their physical show, due to take place only weeks later. We managed to create a pioneering digital exhibition which saw hundreds of independent retail buyers join our online event, which enabled hundreds of designer-makers to make crucial sales and contacts at a very challenging and worrying time for their business.
“From there we went onto create the Virtual Celtic Trade Show, bringing together Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English makers together with North American buyers, which yielded great results for all involved. On the retail side we began setting up web shops for members of the BCTF design community, in a way which enabled even the smallest businesses could afford to get fully online with a functional webshop which enabled them to make sales throughout lockdown. We further support our community via an online marketplace, My Town Centre.
Around the world bricks and mortar retailers have had to create online platforms virtually overnight. As the Guardian reports, just last month, Bookshop, a socially conscious alternative to Amazon, launched online, whilst British company Hive offers a similar service enabling customers to support independent bookshops. The Love Records Stores opened in March to help the music industry make sales online.
Local communities, mindful of the threat to their cherished high streets – already in decline in many areas for the past few years – have demonstrated a robust desire to safeguard favoured local retailers wherever possible. A survey carried out by Visa for Bira found that while three in five shoppers were worried independent businesses would not survive, four in five said they were shopping local as much as or more than before the pandemic.
Social media has been the route to market for many small businesses seeking to engage with their local communities, with regular selling events popping up on Facebook and Instagram by bands of creatives and resourceful shop owners.
Darren Townsend, managing director of Oxfordshire ecommerce site, Locally UK, said. “I think this year will tip many independent businesses over the edge,” but one thing that you find with small businesses is they’ve got such a passion to keep going. And when small business are working and supporting each other, they do pull each other through.”
