BACK OUR BOUTIQUES
OUR city centres may be deserted due to a large number of people still working from home, but lets not pretend that the great British High Street wasn’t in trouble in the era now widely known as BC (before coronavirus).
A huge shift to online shopping during lockdown has of course exacerbated things.
While purely online retailers have their own often under-estimated overheads, they do avoid the crippling city centre rents and rates of the high street stores. Plus they are open 24/7.
But the high street is just one part of the shopping world. Step away from the main streets, and up and down the country, a raft of small boutiques are fighting for survival.
Boutique shopping has always been so appealing to me. I love being able to browse multiple brands in one place and how the edit of each boutique is always slightly different because the buyer’s personal taste is always going to influence what they choose.
While boutiques may avoid the high rates of major shopping streets, they still need strong footfall to ensure they can keep the stock moving and keep it looking fresh for the next time you visit.
It’s a tough gig. If you have a great local boutique, use it or lose it.
I recently stumbled on a retailer who looked like they had the solution to the lack of interesting product in my town centre.
The Gypsy Truck (gypsytruck.com) is run by Barcelona-based Natalia, who every summer de-camps to Ibiza with her truck full of clothing to sell – from designer to vintage and everything in between.
Instead of waiting for the customer to come to her, she takes the merchandise to them.
I call it a market, but the modern name is a pop-up, whereby the shops aren’t permanently tied to rent and the retailer gets fresh eyes on their stock every week.
In Natalia’s case it is holidaymakers who are only there for a week or two.
I believe mobile shops are the perfect solution to our shopping lethargy. I just need to convince one or two of my favourite boutiques that it’s the way forward.