Timely support for independent shops
An astonishing fact I picked up last week was that 80 per cent of shops in Italy are independent, compared to just 15 per cent of shops on UK high streets.
It’s something I can vouch for as in my early 20s, I decided to move to Italy with a mission to learn Italian, find out if Italian men really were as handsome as everyone said they were and, most importantly, to invest heavily in shoes.
My thorough surveys of the Italian retail sector carried out during my time out there confirmed that Italians shop differently.
I was always amazed at the tiny little clothes and shoe shops tucked away down the mediaeval streets of the city where I lived, well out of range of the heavy footfall in the centre of town.
Often they would be the size of somebody’s front room, but impeccably maintained with a carefully-selected range of high-quality Italian-made shoes or clothes catering for a small band of loyal customers.
The question of how they managed to survive, and a lot of them had been there for a long time, often occurred to me.
Probably some of the answer lies in lower rents and overheads, combined with the fact that Italians tend to prefer the personal touch of a small shop and are willing to pay extra for the service.
Clearly Italy has a lot more too offer than shops (the men did turn out to be quite handsome after all) but a diverse selection of places to spend money when visiting a new city often features high on holiday-makers’ lists.
So news that Birmingham City Council intends to find ways to encourage more independent shops can only help make to raise the Birmingham’s profile as a tourist destination, as well as make it a nicer place to live.
The Council is looking at offering financial assistance to new shops setting up, which may go some of the way to easing the rent burden currently squeezing out small retailers from the city centre.
But if they are to survive, independent shops need customers, which is why plans to improve the marketing of the city’s Victorian arcades, which house many independent shops, bode well.
As conditions on the high street grow chillier than this unseasonable October weather and even big boys like Dollond and Aitchison are closing city centre shops, independent shops need all the support they can get.
