All the Little Shops on line for sales boost in 20 UK towns

A brand new e-commerce concept designed to boost sales for independent retailers and drive more footfall into town centres was given the thumbs up by Association of Town Centre Management members when it was launched at their 5th annual Summer School in Liverpool.

All The Little Shops is a revolutionary shopping facility that allows customers to make multiple purchases from any number of local shops on one cyber shopping trip, making just one single payment for everything through a secure gateway. The software for All the Little Shops, which cost more than £100,000 to develop, is the brainchild of Shropshire entrepreneur and advertising executive Peter Riches.

Adopted individually by town centre management groups, each website is set up for independent retailers to use either as an on-line shop or as a catalogue. Products can be changed and updated by the shop owners who can also access on-line reports and receive optional text alerts when an e-sale is made. Every retailer has the same exposure as a new shop is featured every time the web page is refreshed. Through the 'reserve, wrap & collect' scheme even High Street multiples get a bite of this cherry as footfall is naturally driven past their door.

Speaking about the launch, Kevan Baker, Sales Director for All the Little Shops said:
"The response we got in Liverpool was absolutely fantastic. There was a period of time before the dinner when Peter and I were manic, with four or five people approaching us simultaneously. I think the fact that we were there supporting all the independent retailers touched a nerve. Through those conversations we came away with requests for formal meetings from eighteen town management groups and have had a further five enquiries since."

The enquiries came from as far south as Plymouth and included towns both east and west of the country as well as two from Wales. With the future economy of local towns and communities being reliant on the success of small businesses and current closures now hitting 2,000 a year, Riches says he is not surprised to be receiving such a high level of interest.

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.

<< back