Using local businesses

Shopping locally: Why it’s important, what happens to the local economy when you use and recommend local trades and services.

Did you know that using a local shop enables approximately 50% of your spend to go back into the local community? Using a national-chain supermarket only ploughs 5% back in!

In a small market town like Fakenham, there’s a good mix of retailers – from small family-run shops through to branches of national companies. It’s the mix which makes our town different from all the other shopping centres and keeping that mix ‘right’ is the secret to a successful shopping experience. Having some national and regional outlets trading from the town encourages ‘footfall’ and the smaller shops benefit from increased trade (well hopefully, anyway!).

Our small retailers often provide a service that the nationals cannot – usually a personalised experience where you’ll get to know the business owners more. You can get an idea of their characters and that helps in developing the business relationship. You may find that they’re willing to ‘do a deal’ for a regular customer and you’ll probably find that dealing with one person face-to-face is better when problems arise too.

The same applies to our local tradesmen as well. Service is usually more flexible, often less expensive and normally more friendly than using a large company.

To stay competitively priced, local retailers and traders NEED your custom. They also benefit from your support when you recommend them to your friends and family. Advertising can be expensive, but it’s free when it’s done via word-of-mouth and certainly counts for more when it comes to retaining customers.