Retail Opinion - John Ryan examines ways for indies to sell the ‘shop local’ dream

Selling the

shop local dream

Imoved house in February. Free of London after more than 35 years, I’m now in a market town that is described by the Financial Times and The Sunday Times as ‘fashionable’ and one of the UK’s best places in which to live. It may well be, although it’s been hard to tell, as for most of my brief sojourn here things have been closed.

Now they’re pretty much all open again and there is a toy shop in the middle of town that is among the many that make this place something of an indie haven. All of which should be to the good, and days spent walking the dog through the streets have revealed both the strengths and the weaknesses of a location in which the big merchants hold less sway than elsewhere.

The most obvious of these is that shoppers here can fi nd stuff that might not be available in other towns of a similar size, and each of the many small shops are the result of what is loosely termed ‘curation’, in modern retail parlance. Yet what is seen as an advantage is also a mild handicap, inasmuch as many things that might be regarded as mainstream norm are absent.

There is also the matter of how a small shop goes about calling out to its potential customers. The toy shop in question has a relatively small frontage and much of the very crowded window is fi lled with pieces of home computer printed messages in a variety of fonts, sizes and colours. One, however, does stand out: ‘Resist Amazon. Shop local’. It’s on mustard-yellow A4 paper and the font is in black. Hard to miss really.

The point about it, however, is that instinctively you fi nd yourself in agreement with the sentiment. Nobody likes big bad corporates and everybody likes user-friendly local. Except that this comes with a number of caveats. Primary among these is going to be price. Many of those professing to buy everything local are likely to be found wandering the aisles of the local discounter as, well, y’know, got to make ends meet...

Price aside (and that’s a pretty big item to sideline), there are three other major elements: range, ease and display. Unless it’s a matter of remarkable must-have one-offs, the chances are 100/1 that Amazon will have everything that is on display in a local toy shop. There is, of course, the fact that the prospective purchaser can get up close and personal with the merchandise before any money is parted with. On the other hand, however, given the super-smooth logistic effort that tends to characterise delivery and return via Amazon, this is less of a problem than it might at fi rst seem.

But what about ease of shopping? If you happen to be in town and your local shop has the item that you want, then it’s child’s play, as it were, to buy the appropriate toy. Instant gratifi cation has long been the justifi cation for physical shops. But if you happen to have got used to doing almost everything online, thanks to lockdown, then why would you venture downtown to inspect a smaller range than would be available online, with rapid fulfi lment?

So where does all of this leave the local toy shop owner? The cards are stacked against any physical retailer. Why bother? It may be local, but equally it may well be more expensive. The range will be smaller - that’s a certainty.

But what about selling and display? The gentle art of persuasion should come into play. Just how good is the shopkeeper at providing some kind of benefi ts audit of an item, rather than just a product description that you’d fi nd on a website? This is where there is a chance to make things better. Yet all too often ‘local’ means someone sat behind a counter waiting for the shekels to pour in.

This may all sound like a hatchet job on local stores. It’s not intended to be. It’s just that the idea of putting a sign in the window lambasting Amazon for doing what it’s pretty good at and then providing something that is somewhat second best, doesn’t really cut much ice. Viewed this way, the subtext for this sign is ‘We know Amazon is better, but please put up with us anyway’.

A thought therefore: don’t rage against the online machine because you won’t win. Think instead about how your store looks and the level of service you offer as an alternative to online shopping. A well-presented window (devoid of angry signage), which shows the wonders of what lies within, is the path to shopper temptation. And once inside, the shopper should feel at ease, happy to talk about what is being sought. The rest is down to you.

There are, in fact, quite a number of local stores where I now live that do exactly this, and do it well. Being local means being attractive, and emphasising that which can’t be replicated online. As a retailer, you might even want to have a chat with your local café (because there will, inevitably, be several) to enquire about whether they might want some of your wares in their space - a sprat to catch a mackerel.

Being local is not about complaining. It’s about being different and there is certainly a demand for this. I will continue to shop local(ly), but only when there is a reason to do so. Retailers need to accentuate the benefi ts of what local indies can offer shoppers, rather than hitting out at the online giants, says John Ryan

John Ryan is Stores Editor of business magazine Retail Week. He has worked for the title for more than a decade covering store design, visual merchandising and what makes things sell in-store. In a previous life, he was a buyer.