As Retail Birmingham launches a special week on Saturday to celebrate the city’s small shops, consumer editor Emma McKinney speaks to a jeweller about the challenges it faces and reveals how independent stores are giving high street giants a run for their money.

Business collapses have become a weekly event since the start of 2008, when Woolworths became the first high-profile brand to fail as the recession took its grip and consumer spending plummeted.

Overnight, 807 of its stores closed, including Birmingham city centre’s long-established shop in The Pallasades – signalling the end of high street retail as we knew it.

Just this week the UK has seen Jane Norman, TJ Hughes and Habitat fall into administration, and recently DIY outlet Focus, which collapsed last month and saw 300 job losses at its distribution centre in Tamworth.

A recent report by corporate restructuring firm Begbies Traynor shows that 10,250 retailers face financial distress, while the Centre for Retail Research expects 10,000 shops to close this year in the UK.

The number of vacant shops has tripled to 18 per cent in the Midlands since 2007 as businesses have struggled against an increase in rates, rents, commodity prices and utility costs, while banks have been less willing to dish out loans and shoppers have been tightening their belts.

However, despite the odds, independents seem to have weathered the storm much better than the chain stores, with 814 small shops in Birmingham – the 13th highest number in the UK, according to the Local Data Company (LDC), which closely follows the fortunes of retailers in Britain.

LDC director Matthew Hopkinson said: “Although many independents have also closed, they have shown a greater propensity to reinvent themselves.

“The closure rate of independents has significantly reduced over the past two years and 2011 has started well.

“This resilience could be down to the fact that, for many independent retailers, their store is not just a business, but their way of life, which often drives them on to succeed.”

One Midland firm that is riding the economic storm is Rudell the Jewellers, an independent company first set up as a retailer of leather and fancy goods by Justin and Etta Rudell in Wolverhampton in 1938.

It soon learnt the need to diversify to stay afloat and became a jewellery firm in 1950.

The couple’s son Anthony, known to many as Roundy, joined the firm in 1966 aged 20 and quickly demonstrated a flair for developing the brand, expanding the business in 1971 by purchasing new premises in Darlington Street, Wolverhampton, and securing an adjoining store in 1981.

A second outlet was purchased in Harborne in 1986 and the site saw similar expansion to that in Wolverhampton over the years ahead.

His colleagues are still reeling from the shock of his sudden death from a stroke in May, but say that he is still making his mark on the growth of the company, including the decision to acquire a franchise of a diamond ring retailer called Portfolio of Fine Diamonds.

Mr Rudell’s long-time friend and colleague Jon Weston, who is now managing director of the business, said the franchise will see its customers being able to buy or reserve engagement rings online at prices that are up to 25 per cent lower than usually found on the high street.

Unlike buying rings from other online sites, however, shoppers can then visit Rudell’s stores to try them on and have them sized before buying, he added.

He said the initiative will help the company compete with online retailers who have been leaving many high street jewellers struggling.

“Roundy and I looked at the franchise in February as part of a series of plans he was making for the future of the company this year, and even though he has gone we are making his proposals a reality so he is still very much making his mark on the business,” said the 43-year-old, of Stourbridge.