Black Friday 2023 purchases

I bought a Playdate game on Itch that was 50% off. Black Friday is also treated as a "creator day" by Itch which means the platform doesn't take any cut on sales, which is nice.

I think it's OK to support local independent shops. It's sad they "have" to do it though. So some call it Small Business Weekend or Indie Friday, rather than a horrible branded event (tbh not dissimilar to Christmas).

Green Gecko wrote:I think it's OK to support local independent shops. It's sad they "have" to do it though. So some call it Small Business Weekend or Indie Friday, rather than a horrible branded event (tbh not dissimilar to Christmas).

I hate the forced push now for local indie stores, we have it in our town. Spend £10 to help support them and bring money into the economy and keep jobs.

The posts on social media from the teams running this seem to be against places like Tesco or Co-Op despite them being the only 2 food retailers around here and Tesco certainly hires tons of local staff - surely using them also ensures jobs and money in the economy?

Some of the posters around are like “Use it or lose it” well perhaps if it’s not being used it’s because unfortunately it’s just not viable anymore…

Would love to support local businesses but they are very expensive and don’t really sell anything appealing to me either. Most of our ‘local’ indie stores are an older ladies clothing boutique, leather bag shop & quirky gift stores.

gaminglegend wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:I think it's OK to support local independent shops. It's sad they "have" to do it though. So some call it Small Business Weekend or Indie Friday, rather than a horrible branded event (tbh not dissimilar to Christmas).

I hate the forced push now for local indie stores, we have it in our town. Spend £10 to help support them and bring money into the economy and keep jobs.

The posts on social media from the teams running this seem to be against places like Tesco or Co-Op despite them being the only 2 food retailers around here and Tesco certainly hires tons of local staff - surely using them also ensures jobs and money in the economy?

Some of the posters around are like “Use it or lose it” well perhaps if it’s not being used it’s because unfortunately it’s just not viable anymore…

Would love to support local businesses but they are very expensive and don’t really sell anything appealing to me either. Most of our ‘local’ indie stores are an older ladies clothing boutique, leather bag shop & quirky gift stores.

In Lewes it's candles, stoneware plates and towels yes. Which is party why I left.

I think artists and printmakers etc online can be competitive though and tend to use far higher quality supplies than anything in a mega sized store. Also for anything bespoke there is a massive service element that is unfair to disregard.

So printing in small quantities, I mean tees and hoodies for example from one of my competitors in limited runs £20-60 not that different from Uniclo discounting sales. Yes owing to economy of scale the lowest prices simply aren't feasible so I don't discredit out of hand the kind of discount outlets people depend on because that would be unfair.

The race to the bottom is also unfair however. You cannot possibly ever reach a position where pricing on volume is feasible if you can never afford to pay for the volume because the cashflow is just too tight. That leads to monolothic brands being the default and just crushing the competition by default. They almost don't have to try. Cash just automatically flows to them.

They also tend to pay their staff horribly. Myself I get paid nothing but all my support staff get real living wage to £25/hr. One example but good business ethics are generally better too.

Anyhow I was referring to a local japanese import plushy/toy store who are a bit more than you would pay online (especially when importing but that is hassle) and browsing a local shop is a luxury now - yes. But that's the fault of the landlords leasing the business premises at extortionate rates and almost nothing to do with the business providing that service or commodity. They are generally doing so at a loss right from the start.

For example one of my clients just established here spent 6 months securing £40k pa lease so they won't be making any money for quite a long time. If nobody uses it it'll either go back to an estate agent or be converted to residential.

For those that navigate that they are online of course, but the competition is strawberry floating insane with a lot of undercutting and dropshipping preventing any thing close to a real wage for owners. For many the only viable option is to target the upper end of the market which cuts out those who cannot afford to shop there. The owner cannot afford to sell there either. It's a whole other aspect to the property market which is strawberry floated.

I'm somewhere between 30 to 100k down depending on how you account for it (living expenses, what I would have spent anyway etc) so yeah I do appreciate it and that counts too I think. For copycat and straight up boring/useless/vanity stores that's their own problem - half the time I find they live there and that's half the reason they have the premises. The business is just sauce on top and some are terribad. Or they're squatting in a perfectly good shop while they grow their money doing nothing of value to the community. Those are the worst.

And My First Shop funded by family money, that can strawberry float off too.

btw I don't have a shop because I firmly believe it's wasting customer's money. Clients collect instead. Basically a sign saying strawberry float off email me by the door.

Green Gecko wrote:But that's the fault of the landlords leasing the business premises at extortionate rates and almost nothing to do with the business providing that service or commodity. They are generally doing so at a loss right from the start.

For example one of my clients just established here spent 6 months securing £40k pa lease so they won't be making any money for quite a long time. If nobody uses it it'll either go back to an estate agent or be converted to residential.

It is insane how much money just goes on the lease with the landlords stuck in a mentality of year-on-year above inflation increases as if high street retail is still in a 90s boom. High streets would look completely different if businesses that can more than cover their running costs otherwise weren't unviable just because of the ludicrous rents.

Yes. It's very annoying.

In my home town there is a part of the high street that is seven strawberry floating small shops / above let flats (often the same building or lease or freehold) all converted to residential in a row. Painted blue or beige with blank, curtained display windows.

That's one of the oldest high streets in the country!!

Merchants or artisans would live there and do their craft and provide their service.

Instead it's just strawberry floating Tescos, Waitrose. It might take 100 years but that's it.

There's no route into the retail segment unless you can drop insane amounts of money AND be prepared to lose money for X years. Arguably you are just choosing to fund someone else's million £ squat with the merits of your business with a community function or purpose besides... just growing money. The client in question made a joint 90k per year before they decided to change careers and lease a shop for a multi function retail and activity space that helps neurodiverse people.

For the rest of us, online IS retail. So we stay indoors and go to the same shops over and over again. I do think it impacts choice and quality of life.

Without giving away too much honestly I visited recently and they are bricking it. It's understandable to resent being unable to afford local shops/stores/businesses because they are too expensive but with living costs at an all time high, honestly commercial costs are even more insane, because it's like, "ah you need a location to make your own money? I can help you with that. But first *rubs hands* I'll need 400% (negative -300%) of your turnover so that you can have a chance."

They go bust and rinse and repeat. It should not be legal to do this.

Just to jump back on this GG sorry haven’t been on for a while, I anticipate the wage jumps in April will very much kill some independent businesses or at least make staff cuts.

We pay above the going rate and have always done, but now that min rate is sort of catching up onto ours which we put up each year but just looking at payroll this year (already huge, something we can’t avoid to an extent as our customer base really benefits from a face to face person interaction) but to the point I’m having to look at volunteers (we are a charity).

Inevitably our prices will just have to increase in April, again to balance out further wages, there’s a cafe next to us who to be fair have underpaid their staff for years and benefited massively from the cheaper under 23 rates and are just jacking their prices up despite making huge profits I feel they could sort of absorb the cost but that’s another matter..

I think wage increases are always a good thing, but the way the government have not handled it over the previous decade to rise alongside everything else means this is suddenly a shock over the past 2 years I think for many companies, add in the rising costs of everything else, energy, food staples and it just feels like wages go up, as does everything else so you don’t almost see a benefit.

Tough times ahead I think for some smaller businesses