Visiting trade shows open up endless possibilities to boost your retail business in 2023. We’re looking at key reasons why they need to be part of your retail strategy each year. Update: Tickets are available for Autumn Fair, 3rd -6th of Sept 

Top 5 reasons why retail businesses need to attend trade shows

Finding new suppliers. A trade show is the simplest way to discover new, exciting products to offer your customers back in your shop and boost your retail business. Once inside, you’ll see the latest products recommended by industry experts.

One thing that may stand out is a competition running in the background –  with categories such as ‘Best Value Product’, ‘Best Innovative Product’, or even ‘Best Newcomer’ –  helping you seek out new items that will excite your customers and show them you are capable of choosing the products they want most for their homes, or to wear or receive/give as gifts.

Capture the latest trends. The seminar schedule, where all the hot topics are discussed, provides an opportunity to find out what everybody else is struggling with and where retailers are experiencing success. They offer vital tips on the best marketing techniques and product trends, looking at the what’s best to initiate and that help your shop be the success you want it to be for the coming year.

There are so many insights shared at these events, often from very high profile speakers, who you’d pay a fortune to go and listen to or receive a mentoring session. Shows like Top Drawer,  Spring Fair, and the upcoming Autumn Fair in September, do their very best to get the experts in their field in front of you so that you can learn and develop your products and services and be the best retail shop on your high street or in your shopping centre. Autumn Fair, held at the NEC in Birmingham brings together  the most sought-after products, suppliers and creative thinkers under one roof. It’s one of the UK’s leading wholesale marketplaces for home, gift and fashion, showcasing fantastic new products from the best brands in retail better in-person and viewing online.

Team building. Your shop team is one of the most vital resources for your business; having them join you at a trade show can cement how much you value them and help you maximise their abilities. 

Having an opportunity away from “work” will help you bond over your values and share what is important to you as the owner – as an example, ensuring you’re all on the same page regarding customer service and experience. 

Knowing that your team appreciates the value of your reputation and the enthusiasm they show to your customers is vital to successful high street businesses. We’re often so busy with the day-to-day that it can be challenging to share your ideas and dreams for your business with your team. Trade shows present the perfect opportunity for this. They’ll love having a say in your selections – see how much more connected they are with selling those products once they’re back in the shop! Making the most of this resource will help your business fly higher this coming year. 

Learn new skills. Listening to experts who specialise in all areas of running a successful business can help to boost your retail business. Seminars and talks include visual merchandising, good practice and seeing first-hand examples of the best window displays or learning how to display and properly market your products on social media that encourages your audience to buy. These valuable learnings applied to your business can be overlooked by teams attending trade shows.

Organisers may offer training on subjects such as growing your social media presence and how to use it to their advantage as a customer support tool for your business. Stay in touch with customers when not physically in your shop, reminding them your business is there and have an array of best-selling products available. Learn how to help your customers choose the best gifts for work colleagues, teachers and other staff, friends and family and the special someone in their lives. 

Networking opportunities. There are always areas for attendees and speakers alike to connect over a coffee. You’ll be grateful for these spaces when you’ve been trawling around the trade stands and you’re feeling a little foot sore! You’ll have lots of common ground with others at the show and these opportunities to meet other retailers don’t come around that often when you find it hard to leave your own shop.

Even if it’s simply a matter of chatting about how sore your feet are! Sometimes it’s good to see what other attendees have found or what they’ve got out of the show so far. Perhaps you’ll hear about any trade stands they feel you shouldn’t miss, or if there are any seminars that they thought were particularly good. There are often some golden nuggets of information in these conversations so don’t miss out!

If you haven’t been to a trade show before, or it’s been a while, have these top tips encourage you to visit one soon? We welcome your feedback. And by the way, we’re going to visit the upcoming Autumn Fair on 3-6 September at The NEC in Birmingham – you can grab your free ticket here. And, you need to hurry before the 9th of August deadline to register!

If you run out of time to attend the seminars because you’re so busy sourcing new items, did you know that we offer business support, ranging from JO for business growth developed over many years of working with high street businesses to bespoke programmes at SaveTheHighStreet, depending on what you’re trying to achieve. We support all types of business, from independents and market traders to councils and landlords looking to reimagine shopping centres and town centres. We’re here to help boost your retail business.

Check out JO today or ask your local authority about the special joint partnerships we’re most likely working on.

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The twenties are here! New technologies, urgent global issues, and a move back to our local communities will bring both new opportunities as well as threats to high street businesses over the coming years. If we want the high street to flourish in the next decade, we need to make sure independent business owners don’t get left behind.

You can find out how well prepared your business is to achieve its potential in 2020 by taking our High Street Health Check survey.

With good foundations in place, these top 5 trends and predictions for 2020 will be sure to set your business ahead of the rest! 

1. Conscious consumers will spend extra time, effort and money on finding and supporting ethical brands

Climate change is a serious issue, and consumers are becoming more aware of the impact their habits make on the environment. As carbon footprints, working conditions and labour standards are exposed, consumers are going out of their way to make ethical choices and support businesses whose morals match their own.

As consumers demand more transparency, businesses who remain opaque will no longer be able to get away with hiding any horrors in their supply chain or taking part in damaging environmental procedures.

Being open with your community can build lasting trust in your business as well as establishing your brand as a forerunner in the movement towards sustainable shopping.

2. Being seen on many channels online will be vitally important for businesses

Omnichannel retail refers to selling products and services across an array of channels, from branded websites, marketplaces and physical stores to social media and ecommerce sites.

Making the most of all channels means that your brand is exposed to more potential customers who can then, if they like, purchase your products and services with less friction than before. Instead of having to physically travel to your shop, or even to find your website, you can now reach them where they are, creating a well-rounded user journey.

One thing to keep in mind with this approach is that no one channel is more or less important than the others. A physical store or showroom is important for customer interaction in order to build trust, a website improves customer convenience and accessibility, and selling across social channels is quick and taps into shopping via recommendations from friends or trusted influencers.

3. Physical shops will have to get experiential to bring people through the doors

With more and more people shopping online, it will become a necessity for businesses to use their physical stores in an exciting way, offering something experiential and entertaining that simply cannot be offered online.

Creating something experiential, such as an interactive display, or hosting workshops and events, will transform the way customers interact with your business whilst creating a buzz around your brand.

4. Direct shopping via social media will significantly increase sales

As you expand your online presence, it’s worth making the most of social media as a shopping channel and not merely as a marketing tool. Creating shoppable posts makes the process of finding and buying your products much easier, with 41% of ecommerce brands using this feature on Instagram in the last year.

Receiving recommendations from trusted people, such as family and friends, is the number one way to sway a new customer when they’re deciding whether to shop with you. Now, thanks to social media, many people feel close to influencers – such as celebrities, bloggers and others – and trust their judgement, meaning that consumers are likely to shop directly from social channels when products appear in their feeds.

Partnering with influencers, both well-known and local, can help you reach more consumers in a trusted way. Even using paid media techniques to promote your shoppable products directly to the feeds of your target audience will make a big impact on the reach of your brand!

5. SMS will make a comeback as a new marketing method

Although most people have moved from SMS text messaging to social media channels like Whatsapp, Telegram and Snapchat, the role of SMS messaging is undergoing a revolution.

Sharing updates about product releases, news, or special sales via text message is set to be more effective than emails with a potential 98% open rate. Adding links to those messages makes it even easier for your customers to shop directly from mobile, taking them directly to your ecommerce store with applied promotional codes and suggested favourites. This is much better than emails which have an average open rate of 20%!</p>

You can find out more about each of these trends, as well as 15 other key trends for 2020 and lots of other personalised support by joining Jo at JoinJo.com.

Jo was created by SaveTheHighStreet.org to give everyone on the high street the best chance of achieving their potential.

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Members of our Retailer Advisory Board, as well as representatives from industry leading retail companies, met to discuss the modern high street at our High Street Conference. The panel discussed topics near and dear to UK independents, such as the importance of data in retail and the opportunities for getting discovered on the high street. The panel also elaborated on the options that retailers have, to aid them in fulfilling their customers’ needs and growing their business. Far from the usual doom-and-gloom that we hear about the high street, this panel of retailers and industry leaders show real confidence in the future of UK independent retail.

So what can we learn from this discussion?

This panel was very information rich. There’s an awful lot that independent shopkeepers can learn from this discussion. Our panellists had a lot to say about data, discovery and fulfilment. Modern retailers need to understand and optimise their business, in each of these three areas, if they’re going to stay competitive on the high street. There’s a lot to learn about the use of data, the factors influencing discovery and the tools that exist to aid retailers in fulfilling orders. So what are some of the key points to take away from this discussion?

Data can help you understand (and target) your customers

Successful modern retail is data-driven. Retailers gather experience selling to their customers. They understand what people buy. When in the year, the week, or the day they make their purchases. There’s a lot that can be understood about a business, through experience. But it certainly helps to have some numbers and statistics to back the numbers up. In the panel discussion, our Retailer Advisory Board members talk about the effect that installing an EPOS system had on their company. EPOS systems allow retailers to track their sales and stock and can provide data analytics on these areas of business. With this data, shopkeepers can have numbers and stats to inform and support their decisions going forward.

Similarly, customer data offers the opportunity, in advertising, to better target customers. Integrating data from sources such as your website or EPOS system, to inform your advertising, you can optimise to target only the kind of consumer that’s looking for your products. Modern marketing isn’t about mass-reach. You don’t need to hit millions of uninterested to people to sell your products. You need to target the interested few, that are going to be enticed into your store, by your advertising. Using data to make your advertising more effective means your marketing budget can go further.

The role of the web in discovery

It’s one of the biggest issues of modern retail; can the internet really help you get more customers? And the answer, from members of our Retailer Advisory Board, is yes, but you’ll have to put in the effort to make it work. The internet is like a great theatre, full of performances and with an audience of millions. You can’t just turn up and expect to be an overnight hit. You’ve got to put in the work to attract an audience and engage your viewers, to keep them coming back. Rowena Howie, of Revival Retro Boutique, talks about how she grew her Instagram following into the tens of thousands, and is seeing the growth it’s given her bricks-and-mortar business. Similarly, Simon England, of The London Cycle Workshop, speaks about how blog posts, on their website, keep customers engaged online. In the end, it’s this sort of engagement that will convert website visitors into in-store customers.

The demand for convenience and options for fulfilment

Consumers today have very high expectations of retailers. Every big chain is offering delivery these days. Most offer click-and-collect too. If independents are going to stay competitive, they need to meet their customer’s expectations of convenience. Fortunately, there are plenty of options for independents to get started offering greater convenience and fulfilling their customers needs. For example, delivery services (such as CitySprint Health and Urb-it, who took part in the discussion above) are expanding their reach all over the country, making it easier and easier for independents to offer convenient delivery for their customers, wherever they may be. Meanwhile, advances in the field of payments technology are allowing retailers to offer ever more convenient forms of payment. With the advent of contactless payments and even phone payments technology, you can bring in more customers by accepting whatever payments they’d prefer to make.

There’s an awful lot more we can learn from our retailers and industry leaders. There’s a lot that we couldn’t fit in this video, or this article. So make sure to stay tuned for more discussions, debates and independent retail stories from our conference!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

And don’t forget to check out our partners’ special offers on all things retail, on our special offers page.

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The esteemed retailers of our Retailer Advisory Board talk about the successes and challenges of modern retailing on the UK high street. Covering topics such as social media and online presence, eCommerce and spreading awareness, staffing issues and more. Hear what they say about these issues and how they overcome them below.

The above video is a cut of the Retailer Advisory Board panel at our High Street Conference, held in Richmond in September, 2017.

The Retailer Advisory Board

The Retailer Advisory Board is formed of select independent retailers from around the UK. The Board is SaveTheHighStreet.org’s primary knowledge-base for all things retail. Our retailer advisors provide a diverse view of independent retailing across the various sectors of the industry and regions of the UK. At our conference, five of our advisory board members ran the above panel discussion on their recent successes and challenges in independent retail.

If you’d like to join the Retailer Advisory Board and think you could help us here at SaveTheHighStreet.org to empower and assist retailers across the UK, please fill out our survey.

And if you have any questions about the RAB or the conferences, please feel free to get in touch with us here.

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Everyone is online these days. As a retailer in modern times, you’ve got to engage customers online and bring them into your bricks-and-mortar store. Fortunately, connecting your online and real-world presence isn’t as difficult as it once was. With retail technologies like ePOS, you can bring the online and in-store sides of your business together.

Petit Miracles uses Vend ePOS to help them keep track of and connect their online and in-store sales and customers. This helps them understand their business and their community. Without wasting time on more old-fashioned tracking and analysis, the folks at Petit Miracles have more time for other important areas of retail. Like selling, fulfilling customer’s needs and keeping their products interesting and creative. They’re an award-winning independent for a reason, you know.

But if you’re wondering what exactly an ePOS can do for you, well there are a few things to bear in mind. First and foremost, ePOS means tracking. It connects to your sales and stock data to keep track of what’s selling and when. This gives you valuable data that you can use to make data-driven decisions to benefit your shop and improve your sales. You don’t need to make assumptions or take stabs in the dark when important decisions need to be made. With an ePOS you can receive sales reports that back up your decisions with real, helpful stats. The other big advantage of ePOS is that it integrates with everything else your shop does. They can connect with ecommerce systems, staffing rota software and even customer loyalty programmes. EPOS is a great modern retail technology that many independents aren’t taking full advantage of.

Take a 30 day free trial of Vend ePOS – the ePOS provider used by Petit Miracles themselves!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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The number-one thing that a prospective customer wants is to buy something. The first thing a retailer needs to be able to do  is fulfil the customer’s hopes of finding something to buy. Connecting a customer to a product is the basis of retail. But sometimes retailers forget this; it’s easy to get caught up in the other parts of growing a business. Growing your social media following, expanding your network of suppliers, getting an army of affiliates to market your products. These are all things that can grow your business. But if you can’t connect a wandering shopper to a product it’s all for nought.

In the end, you need to be able to connect your customers to your products. Of course, it helps if you’re enthusiastic about what you sell, but in our experience that’s rarely a problem. Most of the retailers we talk to got in to retail because they love their products. Fashion enthusiasts become fashion retailers. Sportsmen and women open up shops for the sports they love. Even coffee enthusiasts import beans and blends from around the world and sell them in specialist coffee shops, to support their fellow coffee-addicts here in the UK. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. If you’re going to dedicate your time, effort and money to something like a shop you might as well sell something you’re passionate about.

The Personal Touch, A Friendly Recommendation

Sometimes shoppers need a little advice on what to buy. Another opinion, especially an expert one, can be very helpful. You know your product better than anyone else. With a little knowledge about what the customer is looking for, you can help find the perfect product for them. This is something that your customers can only get with you, in-store. Remember that you can be your shops biggest asset. If you can connect your customers to the products they’re looking for, you’re providing them a valuable service. This’ll bring customers back in to your store, in person, to engage your services again and again, to give them a better shopping experience than they could get anywhere else.

If you have any thoughts or questions about connecting customers to products, get in touch with us here.

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Retail has changed, in recent times. With advances in technology disrupting how retailers handle everything, from payments, to marketing, to supply. Furthermore, these technological changes translate into cultural shifts, towards a more socially connected youth and a more internet-active society. As a small business in modern times, it can seem difficult to harness these changes for the better. Shinali, of Sefgrove Pharmacy, spoke with xln as a part of their series on UK small businesses, to share her experience.

Small Business in Modern Times

First and foremost, in her video, Shinali brings up the necessity of a working broadband connection. This is something everyone needs, with more and more services moving online. The broadband connection represents a link to the outside world that lets Shinali electronically handle prescriptions. Consequently, losing this link means losing money, as the pharmacy can’t handle prescriptions, and losing customers in the long-term.

As a small business in modern times, the internet connection is a connection to infrastructure that keeps your business running. Making sure you have a good provider is hugely important. This isn’t just because of the connection strength they provide, but because when the connection goes down, they give you great customer service to help get it back online.

Last but not least watch Shinali’s experience of running a small business in modern times here.

And don’t be afraid to get in touch with our team if you have any questions or comments.

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Toff’s is North London’s finest Fish and Chips shop

With customers queuing out the door almost every night. The Fish and Chips shop is very successful, but the management might seem a little split – you see, the two gentleman debating the company’s future and day-to-day workings are brothers.

Costas and his brother are the fourth small business owners in xln’s exclusive series which focuses on the unsung heroes of the UK economy.  The way Costas tells it:

Sometimes it takes all day to make a decision, because one’s got the heart and one’s got the head.

They bought the restaurant in 1999, when the original owners retired. Costas and his brother were fed up with their careers and wanted to try their hand at hospitality, specifically serving fish and chips. The secret to their success has been offering more than just a delightful plate of cod and chips.

Have a look at Toff’s and Costas yourself over with xln. Want to read another amazing story about a local business? Click here to read the story of Arty Globes.

If you have any questions, or just wanted to get in touch, contact us here.

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Independent retailers have a lot to teach each other and a lot to learn from one another. Here, David Arkin of Arancini Brothers, an independent, organic street-food retailer, is sharing some of what he’s learnt from growing his business into a budding independent chain.

Lessons for Before You Start

It’s  important to have a clear business plan, before you get started;

“when you’re working up to 100 hours per week – it’s often hard to stay focused on the end goal”

A clear business plan will keep you on track through the stormy waters that all independent businesses must navigate early on.

It’s also important to get your important systems in place early on, “at Arancini Brothers we used to waste an hour every night reconciling receipts before getting an EPOS system”. By having the right system on board before things really get going, you can save time and often money!

Do Your Research

An ancient Chinese retailer once said: ‘know your store and know your market and in a hundred years of business you’ll never be in peril’ (well, that’s what he meant at least). It’s important that you understand the circumstances of your shop:

“Invest some time in running small surveys or interviews with your targeted customer groups. We’ve learnt that our customers are very price sensitive”.

You need to learn from your customers, if you’re going to sell to them. Arkin suggests that you’ll want to research the paths your company can take. As an example is the option of delivery for food retailers.

Don’t be Afraid to Invest in Your Business

It might sound obvious, but it’s important to invest in your business. Don’t be afraid to put money into your business. Hiring a PR company might not be at the forefront of the average retailer’s mind. Hence investing in these opportunities could be great for growing your business. “We are working with a PR company to continue to grow awareness for arancini balls in general and The Arancini Brothers in particular”, says Arkin, explaining about his food, “new often means unknown – then it’s all about how you communicate it”.

Like most retailers, David Arkin of the Arincini Brothers clearly has a lot to teach and you can read his full article here.

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Build a connection with your customer and get to know and understand what they want.

Cassandre Rank is the PR Manager of 40 Colori. The shop was created in 2014. It brings Italy’s artisanal tradition and ethical fashion together to create colourful accessories for the modern gentlemen. They handcraft the majority of products in their own sustainable workshop for more than 50 years.

‘By the retailer, for the retailer’ are tips and advice shared within the independent business community, to help all retailers adapt to the digitally enhancing world we live.

Last but not least, join Save The High Street Movement now: https://savethehighstreet.org/join-the-movement

Be part of the Retail Advisory Board: https://savethehighstreet.org/retailer-advisory-board

Please leave us a comment if you had any thoughts and in the meantime don’t forget to like and subscribe our Youtube channel.

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