Take for example the once benign township of Hailsham, in East Sussex, where the local Sussex Express front page screamer, quoting local shops, shouted "Use us or lose us".

It's an everyday story of a Tesco torpedo hitting the town and sinking dozens of small shops, 15 of which have already closed - and the intruding monster has not even opened its doors yet.

Councillors approved a super-giant Tesco now under construction which will not only change the town centre skyline for the worst but will eventually destroy the micro-economy of this old market town. Townspeople are angry - their council - seduced by Tesco's cunning linked offer to re-site a primary school - has let them down, badly.

WRONG. That old maxim "Use it or lose it " is so very wrong too. It's time it was ditched. It's been around for decades but there is not one shred of evidence that it works - shoppers can't be blackmailed into using small stores, can they?

In the Hailsham case the local Chamber of Trade is forlornly crying in its beer by employing the slogan. Consumers will only use shops that stock products they want to buy. There is no sentimental support for small shops. Why should there be?

It's too late unfortunately for the Chamber to urge its members to deploy the My Shop Is Your Shop, Local And Proud Of It concept, which embraces so many positives for driving footfall.

NFRN. What needs to happen to ensure councils can resist "inducements" and recognise their true duty to local communities? The safeguards can be found in the new culture-changing Sustainable Communities Act, which the National Federation of Retail Newsagents played a central role in bringing into being.

This would outlaw the Hailsham planning scenario by ensuring communities and small business take an equal legally-based part in the decision making process.

You should support Naresh Purohit, NFRN president, in urging your council to recognise this new process. Write to the leader of your local council - he or she will know what you are talking about.

NEANDERTHAL. Out of the woodwork come the old clichés used by those who can't recognise the dramatic changes the wholesale/independent sector has undergone in the last decade.

Booker won the contract to supply M&S with 350 branded lines. Then commentators said that the company "defended" its decision in the face of its corporate strategy of becoming the biggest supplier to small business.

There is nothing unusual in wholesalers supplying multiples. What's the problem? One major distributor once held talks with the frighteningly burgeoning Co-op group. Other wholesalers are key suppliers to multiples.

In credit-crunched 2008 what matters to wholesalers and their independent retailers is economies of scale bringing crucial cost benefits. If Booker had not taken the M&S business, another wholesaler would. Booker acted in the interests of its business and its customers.

HAPPY SHOPPER. Sir Stuart Rose says the Booker-delivered big grocery brands will help keep the City happy about M&S in a huge policy change which downgrades his own label St. Michael.

But when he was Booker boss, he was a big supporter of Happy Shopper, the own brand which one still sees proudly decorating small shop fascias around the country.

In spite of objections from Steve Sharp, his marketing whiz, cricket-nut Sir Stuart signed big cheques to pay for Happy Shopper boards on the boundaries of Test grounds.

Old pro Sharp, quite rightly but without avail, said that not a lot of Happy Shopper consumers (some of them wrinklies, or the vulnerable, or the skint) seeking low-priced "value" lines watched Test matches.

BORIS. The Mayor of London has switched off any potential electoral support from small businesses by his outrageous, unbalanced and loud-mouthed support for Tesco.

Mr Johnson devoted his near half page in The Daily Telegraph of July 15 to a parable on how he changed from being anti-Tesco, the "slayer of small shops", into a Tesco-lover.

"The brute fact is that Tesco provides food of fantastic quality at reasonable prices" opined Boris, accusing others of being hypocrites in saying they supported small shops but spent their money in giant multiples.

The glow emanating from Sir Terry's propaganda team as they read this fulsome tribute over Finest coffee in their Cheshunt eyrie must have contributed much to global warming on the day that Boris finally lost it.

BOOTHS. The Guardian's G2 supplement, known as the Middle Class Sun, gave a generous double-page spread to Edwin Booth.

He revealed that family shareholders regularly reject handsome offers to buy the Preston-based, 26-store, environmentally-friendly, socially-aware business.

"We are the thinking person's retailer. We satisfy the conscious consumer who wants to know where food comes from. If you go to Booths you always spend more time there and you always buy more," Edwin was quoted.

Customers said that Booths was 10% dearer than Tesco. They liked the new Lytham store but they would "do the real shop at Tesco later".

Some independents see Booths - who built the foundations of the business with Nisa - as a threat. But should they not be learning from its business philosophy based on social awareness, local sourcing, points of difference, fresh lines and so on?

WATER. They say you can identify the personality of any business by the brand of bottled water served up for meetings. The Office of Fair Trading treated wholesaler delegations to Highland Spring (if that has any hidden meaning).

But jugs of iced tap water are now the order of the day with some wholesalers. A sign of the crunch - or a display of environmental concerns?

TICKLE. Here's the now traditional Vigilante commentary on our local Lidl. There are some genuinely high quality marketing brains in this organisation - it's not just about price.

Irresistible is its new Italian promotion - all against the grain of worthy local produce promotion and Buy British which appears to be running out of steam. Wholesalers have put a priority on gathering in and analysing Lidl market intelligence asking "How do they do it?"

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend