Chester retailers offered much needed sales boost

Launched at the Association of Town Centre Management Summer School in Liverpool in June the scheme has attracted interest from more than twenty town centres across the country, with Shrewsbury live and having over 150 shops and businesses registered.

The website, aptly named All the Little Shops, offers independent retailers the opportunity to showcase their shop and up to 50 products and a choice to sell goods on line. As an incentive to get online shoppers physically into Chester they can print off a loyalty/discount voucher and redeem in the shop.

Shoppers can also plan their shopping experience online through All the Little Shops, choose where to eat from the lists of cafes and restaurants, find where to park and even secure WiFi hotspots.

“The success of the scheme lies in the search engine optimisation,” says Peter Riches, managing Director of ATLS. “A pilot scheme we launched in Shrewsbury in March currently gets more than 400 unique visits per day and has had over 1.8 million page views. Sales have increased for retailers there, with some selling outside the area and one even getting an order for a Cello and sheet music from Reykjavik, Iceland, for more than £1000.”

“Small shops could not realistically optimise their own websites so cost-effectively. The website is far more than just another directory – independent retailers can have a quality ecommerce presence from as little as £30 per month.

Stockton, Liverpool, Derby, Leeds, Nottingham, Cambridge and London are, he says, just a few of the big towns who are interested in buying into All the Little Shops, but there are also several small towns keen to take it on board due to the fact that independent retailers in their own right would never be able to afford such a sophisticated e-commerce solution.

"The flexibility of All the Little Towns means it works brilliantly for large and small towns alike, "he says. "And that's the beauty of it. We ran the pilot scheme in Shrewsbury and got it listed on over a thousand Google pages within just a few weeks. One local retailer there, Salop Sheet Music, sold a £700 cello to someone in Reykjavik, Iceland, as a direct result of the customer doing a Google search and being directed to allthelittleshops.co.uk".

Independent retailers in Hereford will be next to have the opportunity of hearing more about the scheme when they attend a presentation hosted by their town centre management on June 14th. The scheme has received praise from MPs Owen Patterson and Phillip Dunne, and the backing of Advantage West Midlands who have agreed funding for at least one town centre.

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