Community Action
As a local retailer you are probably feeling the pressure of the stiff competition you face from the big players in the market place. Every week we see new planning applications to open competing supermarkets and convenience stores very close to existing retailers. Added to consistently aggressive competition and growing costs, retailers are faced with an uncertain future and we have seen scores of business closures. That is why we are so passionate about the value of community retailing - becoming more than just the local shop is key to beating the competition and safeguarding your future. It’s also extremely satisfying to put something back into your local community, and to become an integral part of it rather than just another retail unit.
This section aims to give you a breadth of practical ideas and initiatives that you can use to give your business an advantage and bring your local community together. It's not rocket science; these ideas are things that our members are already doing successfully.
Quick Wins
Some of the easiest things to do can sometimes be the most effective. Several ACS members have implemented the following things in their stores to great effect:
• Sponsorship – sponsoring local teams or individual events raises awareness of your store and promotes you as a community player. You don’t have to spend large amounts of money; one option is to focus on one aspect of a team or event’s requirements to keep costs down.
• Support your local school – running prize draws in store or donating prizes to local raffles is a great way of showing customers that you are involved, and equally this gets them involved with the money raised going to the local school or cause.
• Talk to your local MP - this is a great way of helping to ensure that small shops and town centres get a fair deal when it comes to Government legislation. ACS have set up an initiative called Local Shop Campaigner to help you do this, simply sign up and write four letters a year to your local MP on the relevant issues of the moment. In addition to this we can arrange for your MP to visit your store which is an excellent opportunity for you to highlight the issues you face to your MP, and also a good publicity opportunity.
• Get to know your local police officers – working in partnership with the police force can bring a community together and create a safe shopping environment for you and your staff and customers. You could offer free tea and coffee to your local officers to increase police presence and keep police on the streets in the local area. Some retailers also offer them the use of their office to do paperwork while they are policing locally.
• Tip off boxes – this is a good way to help both your community and the police. Providing tip off boxes gives residents a safe and anonymous way of informing police about crime or antisocial behaviour.
• Charge for carrier bags and donate the money raised to charity. You can publicise the chosen charity in your store. If you choose a local charity so much the better. You can go one step further and donate money to the charity yourself each time a customer refuses a carrier bag. You can download posters from the Carrier Bags section of this website to help you do this.
• Implement ‘No ID No Sale’ and ‘Challenge 21’ to reduce underage drinking in your area and to show yourself as a responsible retailer.
• Run ‘Fruity Fridays’ - running promotions for school children to get low cost or free fruit on Fridays uses up the fruit that you might otherwise have to dispose of and drives traffic into your shop and increases footfall. If you are really adventurous you can dress up as fruit yourself!
Sustaining your Involvement
It’s important to establish lasting relationships and make sure that your involvement is sustainable beyond the individual initiatives you take part in.
• Senior citizens – these are customers that would benefit greatly from being able to collect their prescriptions in your store, and have their shopping delivered to their homes. ACS is a supporter of Help the Aged’s Lifetime Neighbourhoods scheme – they encourage shops to provide toilet facilities for the elderly.
• Organise an event – physically bring your community together by coordinating an event. For example, a Christmas fair or summer fete will bring local businesses and residents together and also provide excellent publicity opportunities.
• Seek sponsorship for your local area – get to know your local councillors and make them aware of any specific issues that need addressing, or tell them about any ideas you have that would enhance your high street, ask them for funding to achieve solutions. Run a campaign to raise awareness among your customers and get their support.
• Locally sourced products – supporting local businesses by stocking their products is a good way of reducing food miles and helping out your fellow retailer. It is also what people want to see more of.
• Take your links with local schools to a new level by getting pupils involved in what you do. Why not run a competition for a poster design to advertise some of your community initiatives or bring groups of schoolchildren into the store to talk about what you do and how the products you sell are produced?
• Create a website or newsletter for your local area or village. If one already exists, submit a regular column to it, talk about the things that affect you as a local retailer and publicise your community actions.
• Get feedback – build a customer panel and ask them for their feedback on what you do well and what could be better; which products they want to see more or less of and ask them for any ideas they might have for fund raising or improving the locale.
• Join your local crime and disorder reduction partnership (CDRP) – CDRPs enable you to partner with the police to identify problems in the local area and work jointly towards combating these.
Remember to get publicity for everything you do. For this you need to make sure you know who the right person to contact at the local paper is, and always tell them what you are doing. It’s a good idea to give them plenty of notice and have all the details to hand when you speak to them. The more you are read about the more your reputation as a community player will grow, and it is this vital difference that will set you apart from the Big 4 and provide you with a vital lifeline in the sector today.
The Big Lunch
The Big Lunch is a new initiative from the Eden Project with the idea that once a year, starting on Sunday 19 July 2009, as many of the 61 million people in the UK as possible will simultaneously sit down to lunch together, with their neighbours, in the middle of their street, as a simple act of community.
The Big Lunch has support from a range of political figures including the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Hazel Blears MP and Mayor of London Boris Johnson; from campaigners including Jamie Oliver, Esther Rantzen and Rosie Boycott and from organisations including Arts Council England, The Big Issue, Google and The National Trust.
The Big Lunch will bring people together through a unique range of activity: growing food and flowers for the occasion; creating street music, art and theatre stories; dressing the street and, of course, cooking and eating together.
With convenience stores right at the heart of their communities, The Big Lunch is a great way to encourage active, sustainable communities, improved environments and reduced crime, as well as encouraging communities to shop locally.
Big Lunch Leaflet