About All The Little Shops - Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury town centre is famous for the hundreds of independent shops located alongside its ‘big names’. The homogenous High Street look has yet to scar this ancient town centre and Shrewsbury has, so far, remarkably retained it’s uniqueness as an English market town with a strong sense of place, character and style. There are over 600 independent businesses in Shrewsbury which give the town centre its special attraction and Retailers United, together with local Web Design company BeVivid have come up with the idea of an unusual supermarket on-line!

A supermarket made up of small shops! A vast array of goods displayed on-line from these town centre independent shops will create a ‘virtual supermarket’ with masses of choice and a great value purchase just a click away!

The official launch of this site will take place on 15th November 2007. Sponsorship for the first scheme of its kind in the country is provided by Shropshire County Council who are intent on supporting the local retail economy in Shropshire. Once this pilot has been tested in Shrewsbury, then ‘All the Little Shops’ could spring up in other market towns across the county.

Fay Easton, secretary of Retailers United said: “We are sorely aware that Shrewsbury needs to support its local businesses and this scheme will help our independent retailers put a selection of their products on-line all under one ‘co-operative roof’ – albeit a virtual one, in the hope that the ‘time starved’ consumers might take a look at the amazing products they can buy from Shrewsbury’s independent retailers!

Once the customers see what they are missing – they may take a trip to Shrewsbury and visit the independent shops to sample the goods for themselves.”

HOW IT WORKS

Individual businesses submit 20 products a month and these are displayed in a giant on-line ‘supermarket’. The payment gateway and management of the product database is operated centrally and the scheme also cleverly combines e-commerce for independents alongside strong promotion of Shrewsbury itself. Visitors to the site would be tempted to visit the town and offers and incentives would be created to draw more shoppers to Shrewsbury. All The Little Shops has been sponsored by Shropshire County Council and once Shrewsbury is up and running, there are plans to discuss the scheme with traders in other market towns across the county.