Charlbury Shops Preservation

Thu 22 Feb 2007, 16:12

Thanks Iain, that was useful information.
Coincidentally, I once set up a similar scheme for a chain of French farm shops in the Charantes. At the time the tricky part was the EPOS scanning software; but that was the early 90's and things have moved on since then. What was…

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Thu 22 Feb 2007, 07:43

Hi. There are good examples of town traders setting up loyalty card schemes. Haslemere has one which is high profile and has won awards. Keying Haslemere Loyalty Card into Google throws up lots of information about that for anyone interested.

Mon 19 Feb 2007, 12:02

Has anyone thought of initiating a Local Shop network of loyalty purchase discounts? Say in the form of redeemable coupons or a magnetic swipe loyalty card

Seems to me that local shops need to offer some buyer incentive to reinforce loyalty and what better way than to network with locally owned shops in other towns and villages? This is all cheaply feasible using a centralised web-accessed database.

Local shops could emphasize the virtues of buying local like the reduction in the shopper's carbon footprint by not driving to shop.

In fact, local shopping could raise in profile through a successful cooperative marketing network.

Just a thought . . .

Sat 17 Feb 2007, 09:54

Message for Derek Collett... Thanks for ordering the CD, but Tiscali does not recognise the email address you gave me. Would you like to collect the CD as it is now in?

Wed 14 Feb 2007, 10:38

I agree with you, Geoffers, some shops such as the bookshop have an excellent range, most here are also very friendly etc etc.
However, The OEC was asking the question how can they survive and get local support? I think there's been quite a range of feedback on here, direct from customers/potential customers so it would be foolish for shopkeepers to ignore it. If shops are to survive, they need to have an eye on future/existing potential custom and adapt to changing needs.

Sun 11 Feb 2007, 14:33

welcome to charlbury the eco friendly burford of the future. let us all open an antique shop and rip off the tourists

Sat 10 Feb 2007, 19:55

Quote - [Decent customer service is also nice - being friendly, helpful and responsive works every time!]

I've never had anything else from the shopworkers in Charlbury.

The Pharmacy under Dean was excellent, let's hope it continues under new management. Jon's bookshop may be limited in floorpspace, but carries an excellent range - plus the help given in being able to obtain books quickly. Lynn and her staff at the Good Food Shop provide me with great tea cakes, muffins, bread (real bread that tastes like bread, not mass-produced) and loads of other things.....and so it goes on, at the Post Office, News and Things, The Co-op, Five Ways, Peter's, etc. The quality of service is there - it's shopping with friends rather than using the anonymous internet, or overcrowded shops in overcrowded (larger) towns.

Longer opening hours? Would enough people make use of them to justify the extra cost to the shopkeepers? Personally I doubt it, too many people are too much in love with their cars and visiting shopping centres at weekends. It seems to me that the most lkely people to ask fr longer opening hours are those who work and commute; they may well have young children - after a day at work, getting home and feeding the children, I can't imagine them going out to the shops unless they have to, and late night shopping isn't going to work for the odd desperate parent.

Once a shop shuts, it's another service lost which is going to be difficult to start again and once more people will moan and be wise after the event. The shops we have provide an excellent service - keep using them - please!

Fri 9 Feb 2007, 22:38

Chamber rep speaking again here:

The Chamber does hold regular meetings for its members, who, effectively, ARE the shops and other businesses with local customers, backed by other community-minded businesses who want to see local shops survive.

Many projects and initiatives HAVE been started over the past 12 or so years. See for example, last year's Independent Retailers Newsletter, that went out to households in Charlbury and some surrounding villages, and downloadable from this site at http://www.charlbury.info/guide/charlbury_retailers.pdf

I would encourage all customers in Charlbury and around to urge your local shops to come to meetings and take a role in WORKING TOGETHER to understand the changing market and build their businesses. Some businesses are already active in this, others are not.

In the end, piecemeal product or trading hours changes are probably not going to make a struggling business viable. But a bigger strategy, to encourage customers down from the Coop, to encourage visitors to the town, to combine marketing efforts etc, may make all the difference to Charlbury's future.

There is extraordinary goodwill in Charlbury to help local shops and businesses survive. Some shops could be a lot more active in harnessing this to their advantage.

Fri 9 Feb 2007, 11:23

well, to go back to the point made by the chamber of commerce representative earlier, no-one, including shopkeepers, is owed a living however harsh that might sound. I can understand how some shops feel on the defensive about this but we all have to adapt to changing circumstances, esp in our working lives. What might not have worked in previous years (opening hrs/product lines) may well work now if given time - risks need to be taken, market research carried out etc etc. I notice how News & Things for example was very quick to start selling cheese/meat to order as soon as the butcher's closed. It's this kind of can-do attitude that makes a difference and gives customers faith in being able to find what they want when they enter a shop. Could the chamber of commerce organise a meeting maybe and help shops out on a collective basis?
Decent customer service is also nice - being friendly, helpful and responsive works every time!

Thu 8 Feb 2007, 19:03

Hi Richard
8000 pa plus nearly 2000 rates,first 3 mths rent free due to work required ? estimated 3000?

Thu 8 Feb 2007, 18:09

Just out of interest, Mark, what rent were you quoted for the former butchers?

Thu 8 Feb 2007, 08:50

I have read with interest all the comments about shops in charlbury?
I enquired about the butchers shop with a view to opening a ANTIQUE SHOP!!!!!! but with current market trends and rent prices plus huge rates the internet is a much better prospect!! and yes i have thought about a shop with internet sales as well???

Wed 7 Feb 2007, 12:25

what ideas are people coming up with in Thame then? I agree with you about continental open hours - much more civilised! Not sure all the shop-keepers would want that though!

Mon 5 Feb 2007, 11:16

Hi everyone, Thame here where we too are looking at how we can preserve our independent shops. Just a comment: In France which I visit regularly, opening hours are usually stop at 12pm for lunch, re-open 2pm close 7pm. Very civilised! but as a previous postee said, several shops would have to try any change together, for a reasonable time, to see if it works.
Also, a very good eating place that attracts families, near to other shops helps it seems.

Mon 5 Feb 2007, 09:13

Good idea to get together on marketing efforts. By the way, a couple of people mentioned the need for a deli, is it my imagination or wasn't there one a few years ago? If so, must therefore have closed down due to lack of business. There are lots around - Woodstock, Chippy, Daylesford.

Mon 5 Feb 2007, 08:24

Most of the responses so far seem to be more flexible opening times , but all shops need to comply, could you chamber of commerce support this and suggest to all the retailers Opening Times of 10-2pm and 4-8 pm and give it a go for a few months, monitoring if there is an increase in sales, perhaps a small flyer would help

Sun 4 Feb 2007, 22:53

Interesting points Cally but do you really feel that the Co-op draws people into other shops in the town? I would have thought it draws people into the Co-op but nowhere else. Most people are fundamentally lazy - if they can get all their shopping under one roof then why bother walking anywhere else? The problem here seems to be that Charlbury's retail outlets are quite widely dispersed and some streets are very sparsely populated with shops. For example, Church Street is one of the major streets in the town but since the butchers closed there is no longer a single shop in it and there are no shops other than the Co-op in Brown's Lane. If there were a greater concentration of retail outlets near the Co-op (say if all the other shops in Charlbury were hypothetically relocated to the Spendlove site) would that improve trade I wonder? Perhaps we also need more "niche" shops selling things that are not stocked by the Co-op in order to lure people away from Brown's Lane to take a look at what the rest of the town has to offer.

Sat 3 Feb 2007, 11:00

It's great to see so much chat here about local shops in Charlbury.

After nearly two years as Secretary for the Charlbury Chamber, I've come to some conclusions about local shops.

Exceptional independent retailers CAN make a good living here. By exceptional I mean they have to:

• Aim at the high end of the market, where customers are less price sensitive but demand EXCELLENT personal service.
• Be very customer-focused - listening and interpreting customers' wants carefully.
• Be prepared to be entrepreneurial and try out new ways of trading eg running an internet distribution channel alongside their shopfront businesss.
• Be top at marketing. Probably using the latest Internet Marketing techniques to pull in customers from a wider area, but at much lower cost than traditional advertising. Like Jon's newsletter for Evenlode Books.
• Be prepared to work closely with other shops and businesses to generate publicity and find the way forward in changing times.
• Be able to interpret seeming threats - like the Coop supermarket and now the take over of Vincent Pharmacy by Coop Pharmacies - as opportunities. Having the larger Coop here has actually brought more customers from a wider area - and independent shops could work this to their advantage if they chose to interpret it positively.

Obviously some shops have been better at these things than others. The shops that can't keep up with the times, that aren't prepared to work together and don't offer what today's customers need - well, why should anyone owe them a living?

Sat 3 Feb 2007, 10:45

John - petrol at £10 a gallon sounds like a brilliant idea! Can you forward your posting to Gordon Brown please?

Fri 2 Feb 2007, 23:30

When I were a lad, Charlbury had 6 pubs, 2 butchers shops, a fish and chip shop, cinema, plus at leasted 6 individual grocery/bakery shops , decent hardware shop, and 3 places to buy petrol,at about 10p a gallon and so on. The problem is that Charlbury is now a Dormitory Town where folks work away (my self included)and put back little into the community so "lets have more shops in Charbury "is not going to be viable. The only recent success story is the Co-op, this I think covers a large area around Charlbury now. The only shops that seem to thrive in communities like Charlbury are the value added "Organic Shops" not the type of outlet the ordinary working family would use. I may be an older contributor to this forum but there is no-way at the present will you be able to turn back the clock !! God knows I would like to see it!!. local shops, not every street blocked with cars,I am about to retire and to have all the local shops back would be a dream!! Only when fuel is £10 a gallon and the average weekly wage is £10 will we see a return to local shopping.

Fri 2 Feb 2007, 14:28

Fine - I'll come in one day next week. Thanks.

Fri 2 Feb 2007, 13:21

Sure Derek, I'd be delighted to get that CD for you. Why not ring me on 819117 (after 2.00), or drop in as I suggested, and we can discuss which edition you want. I don't think this forum is the right place for customer orders: Richard will tell us off!

Fri 2 Feb 2007, 12:51

Jon - you must bear in mind that I have only lived in Charlbury for a little over two years and so don't know what in the way of shops has been tried before and failed. Also, I was responding to a previous request in this thread and therefore my suggestion was purely a personal "wish list" based on my own perceived deficiencies in the current range of Charlbury shops. I realise that it is unlikely that all (or any!) of my proposals will be taken up but one can always dream! I might point out though that just because a particular shop has failed in the past it doesn't necessarily follow that the same thing will happen again; the population base changes with time as does the retail climate.

I knew that you did stock CDs but was not aware that you covered the genres I mentioned. When I've come across your advertising in the past I think you have only mentioned classical and easy-listening CDs, hence my confusion. If you are able to order me the new "Explosions in the Sky" CD when it comes out at the end of February then I will be only too happy to buy it from you! I would also be willing to pay slightly more than I would on Amazon in order to support a local tradesman.

Of course what is really needed is for someone (Charlbury Chamber of Commerce perhaps?) to distribute a questionnaire to every house in Charlbury asking what shops are required in the town, whether people would support them if they opened, how far people are prepared to walk to do their shopping, what drawbacks are currently encountered when shopping in Charlbury, etc. No doubt you will tell me that this has been tried before and failed (!) but this Forum only covers a small percentage of the town's population after all and so a wider and more representative variety of views might be obtained in this way.

Fri 2 Feb 2007, 09:46

Hooray! Derek has some concrete suggestions. Let's look at them ...
The hardware shop (which also sold gardening stuff) closed 8 or 9 years ago through lack of custom. News and Things then tried stocking hardware and a range of tools, but found it did not pay. The previous owner of News and Things, if I remember rightly, offered cycle repairs, but I don't know what became of that. There was a secondhand bookshop in Market Street (where Evenlode Books is now) until about 6 years ago, when it closed through lack of customers (as have many secondhand bookshops -- in Oxford and in Woodstock, for example). "Contemporary (pop/rock/alternative) CDs" have never been a significant part of my stock of CDs in Evenlode Books (yes, my shop: you say "the bookshop could sell CDs", well it does!) because of lack of demand, but if Derek wants a particular CD I may well be able to get it for him the following day: I'm not aware he has ever asked. Surely he would not go into Oxford for a CD anyway: he'd buy it very cheaply over the internet, or download it.
Derek -- as you used to buy most of your meat from John Brain, you're obviously around town during the day: why not pop in for a chat!? I don't think we've met?

Thu 1 Feb 2007, 21:25

To answer Meg's question, I would like to see the following shops in Charlbury: a hardware store; a sports equipment shop; a cycle equipment/cycle repair shop; a second-hand bookshop (desperately needed and I can't think why there isn't one already!); and a shop selling contemporary (pop/rock/alternative) CDs. Some of these could of course be combined; i.e. the bookshop could also sell CDs, the sports shop could sell bike bits, etc. At present If I want any of these commodities I have to go to Oxford for them but if I could buy them in Charlbury I would do. What we don't need is an antiques shop - the rest of The Cotswolds is already awash with those!

Wed 31 Jan 2007, 15:54

We did look at opening a shop in charlbury, We started a business 3yrs ago selling die cast tractor models Lego ect but decided against it as there was not enough local interest. so we looked else where and eventually opened a shop in stow on the wold as they have more tourists. My felling is that charlbury has gone down hill (shopwise) since the bank closed. The bank used to bring in local people in to the town and save them a trip to witney or chippy meaning they would also do more shopping in the town as well.

Wed 31 Jan 2007, 13:28

The Co-op's quite an interesting example of opening hours. When they were in Sheep Street, they tried Sunday opening for about five weeks. No-one turned up. They stopped it.

But then, of course, they built the Spendlove store and became "open all hours". Now there's always someone in there, even at 9.30pm; and it's heaving at Sunday lunchtime.

The moral? If one shop briefly tries out late-night opening, it won't work. But if several of them made an effort, and tried to make it permanent rather than just a trial, I think it might. (The same goes for Saturday afternoon - there's nothing magical about Charlbury that means local residents like to shop at different hours from the rest of the world.)

Meg - it's the "deli" stuff that's the difference. For much of the stuff from the Good Food Shop, I can buy something similar in the Co-op (or something different, but equally tasty) at a time that suits. CQF/Slatters and Callow Farm Shop both have genuinely exciting ranges of food where I go in and think "oooh, I'd like that, that, that and that".

Wed 31 Jan 2007, 13:05

I take your point, Jon. I'm sure Charlbury's a tough market in which to operate. What shops do you suggest local people should run though?
The butcher's in theory is a good proposition. However, I've heard it needs a lot of work , it's also a large site and therefore a larger risk for someone to take on. I'd have thought smaller sites, like yours, with good on-line access are more likely to succeed here. But what to offer? What needs aren't met here? And how to get people to do some shopping here instead of doing all their shopping in Witney/Chippy.

Wed 31 Jan 2007, 13:01

I've tried different hours in the bookshop. Being open in the evenings when people come off the trains doesn't work (they just walk past exhausted, even with an A-board out and posters! I don't blame them either.) It's probably not worth staying open after 5 on weekdays, though I do stay here till 5.30. By 12.30 on a Saturday Charlbury is dead: I think we'd need a greater variety of shops to be able to sustain interest for longer, and in any case people often like or need to go further afield on a Saturday. The occasional tourist buying a postcard doesn't help much.

Most of the shopkeepers work long hours as it is and would need to be justified in employing staff to cover the extra hours. Certainly, as things are, I wouldn't. People who work away from Charlbury email me their orders and queries during the week and collect their orders on Saturday mornings: this works well. I also deliver things so they're on people's doorsteps or mats when they get home. That sort of flexibility pays off all round. But of course some shops are not even on email.

What we really need are more people who want to run shops themselves! Not that feedback and suggestions are not welcome (at least, I welcome them, I can't speak for all the shops...), it's just that there are several empty shops going but no one wants to take them on. Just look at John Brain's old shop: just waiting for someone to take it on and make a success of it, but still sitting empty ...

Wed 31 Jan 2007, 13:00

Doesn't the Good Food Shop meet a similar need or is it that its hours mean you can't shop there? I find it quite a handy place to shop but I'm able to go on during the week. It could expand its deli range though as well as its hours.

Wed 31 Jan 2007, 12:49

I'd thoroughly agree on the flexible hours. Shops that are only open when most local people are at work are always going to struggle for trade, but it's doubly true in Charlbury; the railway station brings hundreds of people into the town, so why not try to sell to them?

I forget the last time I used the Good Food Shop, for example: the only time that it's open and I'm not working is Saturday morning, and to be honest, after a week at work the last thing I want to do is drag myself out of bed to go shopping!

What shops do we need? Well, a branch of Chadlington Quality Foods would be nice. ;)

Richard (personal opinions only, of course)

Wed 31 Jan 2007, 11:01

oh and out of interest, what kind of shops do people think are needed in Charlbury? Anything we don't already have?
Just curious.

Wed 31 Jan 2007, 10:21

More flexible hours would be great - I'd have thought 9-2/3-7 would work better so that shops could be open around the school run, a good time for shopping for many. Also longer hours over the weekend -Sat afternoons and say 11-3 on Suns.
I don't see how our shops can survive in the long-term without this flexibility. Adapt or die as they say and personally I don't want to have to buy all (or actually any) of my goods at Tesco!

Wed 24 Jan 2007, 23:31

That would suit me fine but I can't speak for the rest of the population.

Wed 24 Jan 2007, 19:35

Thanks for some response. The problem speaking from first hand experience , is lack of use and trying to pay wages for longer hours.....any further suggestions would be welcome,,,,how about if the shops opened from 10-2 and then 4-8pm would that work for people?

Wed 24 Jan 2007, 17:14

Yes I do want to preserve local shops - see the "Butcher Closure" thread of a few months' ago for more on this subject!

Wed 24 Jan 2007, 17:06

yes, well speaking for myself!
Of course, otherwise we'll be trekking off to Tesco for everything.
I think they need to be flexible - open longer/later hours including weekends if they want to survive.
Hope you get some more feedback, a question well worth asking!

Fri 19 Jan 2007, 08:17

Do the residents of Charlbury want to preserve the local shops?
If the residents do, then they need to use them, if they want to use them, when should they be open?
How can the local shops survive, they need local support
Do you agree?