COVER STORY
SHOPPING LOCALLY RESEARCH
SHOPPING LOCAL TREND SET TO OUTLAST COVID MORE CONSUMERS THAN EVER ARE SHOPPING LOCALLY, BUT NEW RESEARCH SUGGESTS THAT THIS COVID TREND MAY EVOLVE INTO A PERMANENT FEATURE OF THE RETAIL LANDSCAPE, EVEN WHEN CORONAVIRUS IS BEHIND US. BY ANTONY BEGLEY
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t’s well documented that more consumers than ever are shopping locally, a shift driven by the effects of Covid-19. Nervousness around the safety of big box shopping has led shoppers to flock to local retailers creating a once in a lifetime opportunity for the sector.
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But the concern was always that when things returned to ‘normal’ or, more likely, to some form of ‘new normal’ then shoppers would gradually drift back to their old habits of big supermarket shops and increasingly infrequent visits to the local stores that were there for their customers when
