Blogging Fair Trade

I have recently been enjoying the latest TV series by Mary Portas, self-crowned Queen of Shops. Mary Portas “made her name in retail” and now takes it upon herself to visit shops and give them a new lease of life. Her previous series saw her tackle charity shops; now she is trying to rescue dying independents from being sent under by supermarkets.

The series has seen her seek to revive a bakers, a corner shop, a greengrocers and, most recently, a shop selling items for the home. The shops are always run by great characters and they tend to take insult to Mary’s words of wisdom, which are fairly blatantly exaggerated and spiced up to improve the entertainment factor.

Mary Portas

The core of each show is finding the unique selling point (or USP) of the shop in question: What can they offer that the supermarkets can’t?

It goes without saying that the small independent shops on our high streets are being put out of business because supermarkets sell everything and cheaply. So, according to Mary, the only way for independent shops to survive is to offer something that the supermarkets can’t. For the bakers it was specialist bread baked by an on-site baker; for the corner shop, sourcing local produce from farmers and local businesses; the greengrocers was freshness and local produce, as well as a door-to-door veg box service; and for the homeware shop it was seeking out items at markets and doing them up with a touch of creativity.

Although Mary Portas’ style is somewhat head-on and, at times, a little OTT, you cannot deny that she knows her stuff. Her work on the shops includes a rebranding and refit, and by the time her work is done the shop always looks ten times better and like it has a real chance of survival.

But, at the end of the day, it is consumers who will decide which shops will survive and which will go under. You can now quite easily buy everything from supermarkets, and with online shopping, you don’t even need to go to the store on your local high street. Local shops like butchers, bakers, greengrocers and corner shops really are facing an uphill struggle and will only survive if consumers choose to shop there, despite the convenience of having everything under one roof at a supermarket.

Why would anyone buy meat from one shop, fruit and veg from another, and bread from a third shop, when you can buy everything from one big superstore? Well I do exactly that, and why? Because I want these shops to be there in 5 years time. I try and buy as little as possible from supermarkets, and choose instead to support local independent businesses. I go to my local butcher for the friendly service, the locally sourced produce and because I want there to be a butchers on my local high street.

The simple truth is that if we do not support local independent businesses they will disappear, and when they do, all we will have left will be supermarkets: Four monster companies deciding what the nation eats.

Mary Queen of Shops, Monday 9pm, BBC2