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Wry Smile

Blog: The Myriad Life Market Blog
Posted by: Myriad Life Saturday 23rd February 2008, 10:35pm

Well if you didn't have a good sense of humour you would never become a market trader - that's for sure. Something I heard today brought a wry little grin to my lips...

I read somewhere that Sheringham has a particularly high rate of obese youngsters. I can't say that I would have particularly singled out Sheringham for such a statistic, I see a fair number of hefty youth on my travels around the county but equally I see quite a few skinny and average weight ones too. Of course not having actually counted them I can't scientifically argue with the figures.

I'm only mentioning weight because it was a tubby teen who remarked whilst carelessly spinning the earring stand today that you could get a certain pair of earrings cheaper at Tesco's. So why the wry smile? Well I've been reading of the frantic battles the shopkeepers of Sheringham have been waging to keep Tesco's away from Sheringham. They feel that this will mark certain death for the high street shops predicting that at least 16 could be forced to close should the fearsome giant be let loose in the town.

I understand their fears. In Diss it seems many shops are steadily disappearing, giving way to a plethora of charity shops and vacant spaces. I can't say for sure if this is because Tesco's and Morrisons now have large stores in this town or if it is natural economic decline, or expensive rents or if the independent's products simply didn't work.

However, I also can't see much difference to Myriad Life's takings to when they weren't there.

I can't help but wonder if the local shopkeeper's of Sheringham (some not all I shouldn't wonder) apparent dislike of the market is similar to their fear of Tesco's. When trade is difficult businesses often seek to blame outside factors rather than rationalising whether they need to change their business to suit the economic climate and customer demand. Interesting question.

There is also the argument that Tesco's will bring more people into the town and there is always the likelihood that while they might shop there they will also explore the rest of the town. Surely there are sufficient shops selling niche product that cannot be affected by the supermarket or will their spare cash all be swept away by the supermarket?

Back to Diss - Tesco's sell jewellery but so still do Myriad Life, we still have regular customers and new customers but would we have more if the supermarket wasn't there - I really don't think so.

In conclusion, these are 'challenging' times for independent businesses and on the whole they appear to be rising to the challenges. If less energy gets spent on worry about supermarkets and 'others' and more energy gets spent on providing exciting product and service for customers it could well be that the strong independents, the flexible independents, the innovative independents just might win the day - we'll see...

As for the tubby teenager, I'm sure she will be back - after all she did like the bracelets!

Check out www.myriadlife.co.uk - for something a bit different!

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