Doom & gloom on the high street?

[Not your average framer]

From time to time, I get to talk to some of other retailers in my town. (None of them are framers). Over the last year and more, most have noticed a drop in sales, but generally have not been to down about it, until recently.

However in the last few days a lot of them are really depressed about the future. It seems that most of the talk is about how to survive the pre Christmas and post Christmas period. Quite a few are not getting much business at all. I'm still o.k. for business, but I find this sort of talk rather unsettling.

Is this just local to my small town, or are others hearing the same sort of thing elsewhere?

[Not your average framer]

Our main street (the one with all the shops) is still very quite (almost nobody about) and the general opinion appears to be that everyone is shopping in Exeter, which is our nearest big city. Normally things are not so quite this time of year in our small rural town, but some of our other retailers are mentioning the dreaded S word...Survival. This is quite worrying, if all that many go, it may affect the rest of us.

Fortunately for me, if anything I'm too busy and getting very tired with all the extra hours. This is not good, because I'm running on automatic and not always doing things as and when I planned. I'll be very glad when the Christmas shopping and the sales are over, so the town starts getting the normal level of foot fall again.

[Roboframer]

Speaking for myself - diversity works, we're so diverse that we make our whole village diverse; without us they'd not even have the basic butcher and baker (well, we DO have a baker - a very new addition, but it's a tiny outlet for a bigger store in an adjoining village - and we did once have a butcher, a superb one, it closed not due to lack of business but staff problems - again - a branch of a large, successful place in an adjoining village.

We have a florist, THREE hairdressers, a newsagent, a charity shop (quite a posh one) an estate agent, a general store/PO, a chippy, a Portugese cafe, that bakers, a vet, a dentist, a pub and a big flash BMW dealers. Three empty shops, one was an off licence - one of the Thresher chain that's just gone down. No idea what's going in there but the other two are let - one is to be a kids clothes shop; the other an eye/ear place.

.... Then there's us - picture framing, art, haberdashery, crafts, needlecraft, giftware, greetings, dry cleaning*, alterations and repairs* knitting wool. If you include framing with art we're still nine shops in one, you could really call it ten, as ribbon, which comes under 'haberdashery' is our No1 selling item - in a premises the size of our bakers we could survive on that as a primary with framing as a sideline. There's a shop in Sloane Square, London, that sells nothing but ribbon and nothing can come close to their range until you hit us - but our prices blow them away because we're not in Sloane (I saw you coming) Square!

Apart from the charity shop next door to us, which is tiny, ours is the only shop in the village that is 'browse-able'

How diverse is your town? What does it have that is 'different' - to attract people from outside of it and what can be done to inspire locals to go no further than it? I see you have a chamber of commerce but going by what I can Google, not much of one (not that we have one at all!) So, seeing as you seem to get on well with other shop/business owners, how about putting a bit of spark in to that to promote and maintain a desire to shop local?

[Roboframer]

Too late to edit ....

Asterisks above = agency - plus I left out an Indian take-away, but that doesn't open until 5 pm.

[Not your average framer]

How diverse is your town? What does it have that is 'different' - to attract people from outside of it and what can be done to inspire locals to go no further than it?

Hi John,

"What does you town have that is different". What a great idea for a thread!

Well, Our town is visited by large numbers of coach tours and foriegn visitors during the summer months, because it has:

* The Devon Guild of Craftsmen. Situated and a build which was meant to be a watermill and was built in the 1920's, but the waterwheel never worked, (as the designers did not know anything about waterwheels).

* The House of Marbles. A glassworks / giftware shop / cafe sort of place.

* Lots of tea shops, restaurants and take aways.

* The town is known as the gateway to Dartmoor.

* Lots of Hotels and guesthouses.

* Lots of crafts related shops.

* The town hosts "The Contemptorary Craft Fair" each year.

* Has a railway related town hertiage museum, but not longer any railway.

During the winter it can be a bit quite.

I see you have a chamber of commerce but going by what I can Google, not much of one (not that we have one at all!) So, seeing as you seem to get on well with other shop/business owners, how about putting a bit of spark in to that to promote and maintain a desire to shop local?

The chamber of commerce ceased to be about eight years ago. I guess no one told Google about that!

We had some meetings about promoting the town, but nothing ever came of it.

We are a plastic bag free town. I was one on the first to go for it, paper bags are cheaper!

I suppose that we must have 30 to 40 shops in the town. Some are very small. Many of us are a bit out of date by modern standards. We only have two empty shops in the town, one was the Thresher's off liecence, the other was an estate agent.

I wonder if anyone else wants to say anything about their town?

[WelshFramer]

What does your town have that is 'different'?

The International Bog Snorkelling Championships

[Moglet]

It's appallingly quiet in NCW. Given that it's the last shopping week before Christmas, if anything there are fewer cars on the road than during the many quiet months the town has had during the past 12 months (as best I know, given that I've been 'housebound' for nearly 6 months now).

For the couple of days that I spent with my friend in Clare recently, he brought me into one of the major Limerick City supermarkets one Saturday morning (being with somebody helps with my agoraphobia and allows me to go out without anything like as much upset). Just in the brief time we spent in the supermarket, there was a major difference in the prices offered in the City store that were the same as, or comparable to, the few items that I buy regularly (given that I can't eat much at present): they were significantly cheaper, even after all the price cuts that the local NCW supermarkets have introduced over the last year. Based on that, it would not surprise me if many people are choosing to do their "big Christmas shop" for food, etc., in the CIty stores.

Also, for the couple of times I force myself out to the local supermarket each week, there is a marked difference in that, even though times were tough this time last year, you would still see people pushing trolleys round the stores piled high with Christmas groceries, libations, etc. This year, one doesn't even see many people pushing trolleys at all, and the ones that they don't have all that much in them...

My gut tells me that, as dire as 2009 has been over here, 2010 is going to be much, much worse. I pray in all sincerity that my prediction is proved wrong...

[Not your average framer]

My gut tells me that, as dire as 2009 has been over here, 2010 is going to be much, much worse.

I've been saying the same! The important thing is to be ready to survive in a different business environment and to have already considered your response to various possible outcomes.

I'm expecting to need to operate with minimum overheads and be less selective about the jobs I am willing to accept from customers. Fortunately, I have a lot of stock and recently I'm finding that customers who are looking for a bargain, are willing to consider anything which saves them money.

For those who have not considered 2010 getting worse, I think some forward planning should be conducted. If things turn nasty and you have not had time to think ahead, it will take valuable time to change your thinking and take the necessary actions. It pays to have a plan.