Five things independent high street businesses can learn from Bill Grimsey’s latest report
Remarkable City’s Research Assistant Natasha Kerr reads Bill Grimsey’s excellent new high street report and considers its findings from the perspective of independent businesses.
Bill Grimsey launched his new report, Against All Odds, at pop-up retail space Sook in central London on Monday 19th July. It looks back over the pandemic and looks at how independent retail, hospitality and services businesses have adapted to survive the pandemic.
If you don’t know Bill, he's been a champion of the high street for years publishing two reports, known as Grimsey 1 and 2, that have included highly prescient recommendations about how high streets need to adapt to changing needs. Bill draws from his time leading Iceland and Wickes.
The cornerstone of the report is a detailed study they carried out looking at independent business debt and they found that it had ballooned during the pandemic from £483m to £1.7bn. The graphic at the end of this report shows the stark reality when it comes to the debt picture.
There have been articles in the Retail Gazette and the Guardian focussing on his recommendation to the government to write off loans to keep these crucial businesses alive.
Other recommendations include business rates holidays and reforms (replacing it with a sales tax), HMRC offering tax deferrals and creating business and community networks across town centres to promote their unique offer.
It also sets out the importance of councils putting the ‘experience’ of a high street at the centre of how they design and plan these areas. (As an aside, Remarkable City produces high street strategies for local authority clients, such as this one in North West London).
“Councils need to take greater ownership and responsibility for their high street experience. It is no longer just about shopping. There needs to be a bigger focus on safety, cleanliness, signage, entertainment and the whole environment. Councils need to acknowledge that it’s their responsibility to create an outstanding experience.”
Bill understands deeply that independent businesses are the lifeline of the UK’s high streets and they give town centres their identity, something that is increasingly important.
“For too long the role of smaller businesses has been downplayed and there needs to be a greater appreciation of their role in building distinctive places, strengthening local identity and creating strong community roots. This cultural shift is key to unlocking the potential of towns of the future.”
We thought it was worth reflecting on his new report through the eyes of the independent businesses to capture recommendations for them. Natasha has compiled a list of the top five recommendations that come out from the report.
Before we go through the top five, we need to underline that independent businesses have a friend and champion in Bill Grimsey.
1. Independent shops are front and centre in the fight for high street survival
While, in the past, councils were generally focused on bringing well known, established retailers to their town centres and high streets, multiple high profile retailers have struggled to remain afloat during the pandemic and many have closed branches with others collapsing completely.
Due to this, the focus has shifted onto smaller, independent businesses as the future of high streets. ‘Clone town Britain’ is, therefore, ‘in retreat’, in favour of more diverse high streets and town centres across the country. This provides a significant opportunity for businesses to work together and market themselves by creating unique, localised identities that have the potential to draw in visitors through a heightened sense of destination.
The example of ‘Kemps General Store’ provided in the report is an example of this, as the town of Malton in North Yorkshire was envisioned and branded as a ‘foodie town’ with the promotion of artisan food producers, establishment of food related events and creation of a ‘Food Lovers Festival’. As a result of this unique and individualised marketing, Malton has been dubbed as ‘Yorkshire’s Food Capital’ and over 40,000 visit for the festival each year which not only supports food-related businesses but also increases footfall across the whole town.
2. Collaborate locally to market your town
While this has been true for a long time, the pandemic has further demonstrated the value of independent businesses working together and forming partnerships and networks. Therefore, as the report states in its 8th recommendation, Independent Business Associations should be encouraged and a stronger sense of distinct local identity can evolve. As the report asks, ‘Why market your shop when you might be better marketing your street, village, town or area?’.
However, working collaboratively does not only support independent businesses in terms of marketing, it can also provide both moral and financial support. During the pandemic, many independent business owners may have felt alone and isolated so a sense of belonging to a wider network and the guidance provided by those networks was invaluable. As an example, the report looks at ‘Independent Wirral’ which was established by the Wirral Chamber of Commerce to allow independents to become part of a network with a website, social media promotion and loyalty scheme in order to collectively showcase and promote their products.
Another example of collaboration that the report looks at is Nisa stores which benefit from low cost stock and access to support with sales promotions and stock control. Collaboration for businesses therefore has success stories both locally and on a national scale and it is important that this ‘spirit of collaboration’ continues and strengthens following the pandemic.
3. Use social media platforms in sophisticated ways to broaden your reach
Social media platforms can have many benefits for both smaller and larger businesses for example with marketing, collaboration, product or service promotion and event organisation. By increasing social media presence and investing time in improving websites, businesses can reach a much wider audience and fine tune the image they want to convey.
Content creation has become an important way for businesses to engage customers and also provides the opportunity for them to review analytics and understand audience activity online. This increases interactivity between businesses and their customers and helps to form relationships, with customers further promoting and posting about brands they like. It also makes it easy for small businesses to support each other by liking and sharing content and using stories and tags to promote one another. While this transition to online platforms has been ongoing for a while and was arguably inevitable, the pandemic was the reason behind lots of smaller businesses choosing to invest more time into their social media profiles.
The report provides the example of ‘Keith Scarrott Shoes’ who invested the extra time provided by the pandemic by focusing on improving their digital platforms to increase their reach from a ‘largely regional customer five years ago’ to ‘an international audience’.
Another relatively new concept is using local influencers to promote your brand or product. Influencers can be seen all across social media but small businesses can use them to attract new audiences. The report focuses on ‘Fidan’, a London based jewellery business, that has utilised this idea of influencer marketing as an opportunity for promotion. The owner, Gulten Geneci, gifted items to social media pages with lots of followers so that they could use their influence and wide reach to increase the presence and visibility of the brand online which helped increase both followers and sales.
4. A physical store is a platform for experience, and experience matters
The market has shifted in recent years both before and during the pandemic and businesses can capitalise on this shift. One of the most obvious changes is the growth in online retail and the idea of hybrid retailers which operate both in physical stores and online. Functioning online and operating through click and collect, drive through and delivery services has helped many businesses continue to trade throughout the pandemic. However, the importance of maintaining physical stores in order to protect high streets must not be forgotten and that is why the hybrid solution is a logical outcome.
“A new breed of retailers is emerging that are creating immersive retail experiences and turning shopping into an event. These are at the vanguard of future retail and are set to benefit from a growing consumer demand for experiences. To capitalise on this trend, all service providers need to adopt a new mindset and recruit differently. There are thousands of people in the UK events and culture industries currently needing work and businesses should be bringing in this new skillset to transform the sector. Customer service needs to evolve from “have a nice day” to providing memorable experiences.”
Independent businesses already have one leg of the hybrid retailer that digital-only retailers don’t have - the physical store, so you’re one step ahead.
5. It makes business sense to go green
Whilst businesses are becoming more environmentally friendly for altruistic reasons, which is incredibly encouraging, it is also starting to pay off commercially for businesses. (This is a hugely important area in itself, check out the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s work in this area).
Marketing the use of non-plastic packaging, demonstrating sustainable methods of production and promoting sustainable products can all be successful ways for businesses to demonstrate environmental consciousness and attract consumers.
Looking back to Fidan, they promise to plant a tree with every purchase and the report also mentions BLEAQ, a sustainable fashion business and ‘Pot Gang’, a subscription service for seeds as examples of businesses with an environmental agenda.
Overall, a focus on sustainable products or environmental incentives seems to be an effective marketing tool for independents.
We hope you enjoyed this post from Natasha.
The main photo is of the Wood Street Deli, which opened during the pandemic, and is a great example of an independent business doing a lot of the above. You can follow them on Instagram at @woodstreetdeli.
Stay tuned for more posts from Natasha and also Duncan Ray, Founder of Remarkable City, coming shortly on the Levelling Up agenda and how we decoded the Prime Minister’s speech in Coventry.
We’ve posted this on Twitter and LinkedIn, so please share with your network and let us know what you think and what we’ve missed.
Who are Remarkable City and how can we help in this area?
We are a local economic development agency that has data at its heart. We help councils to use data to gain insights about how business growth and challenges are changing town centre economies and produce strategies that set out what they need to do from an investment, funding and policy perspective.
Going forward town centres are going to increasingly compete with one another for custom and funding. We build inward investment functions for councils powered by the latest digital and data tools to support all their efforts.
We are a proud independent business and are technology and data agnostic, meaning we select the right data providers, software and analysis packages for you based on the systems you already use.
Please get in touch with Duncan Ray, duncan@remarkable.city, or follow us on Twitter @remarkablecity.
