Market Towns

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The latest round of Shop Doctor in store surgeries will be taking place in three areas of urban Carlisle in the near future.

Up to 16 businesses across Currock, Upperby and Harraby will be receiving visits from The Shop Doctor in this latest round of business support specifically targeted at assisting the independent retail sector.

The work  has been commissioned by Carlisle City Council and follows previous support delivered to retailers in Brampton, Longtown and Dalston.

The asistance will be provided on a first come first served basis and retailers within the nominated areas are urged to make contact to arrange a visit without delay.

Visits can be arranged directly with the Shop Doctor via 015394 40020 or email bill@sldt.co.uk.

Alternatively contact Chris Pearson, Carlisle City Council Economic Development Manager on 01228 817015 or email christopherp@carlisle.gov.uk

Boost your Business information

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Between the 1st and 3rd June the Shop Doctor visited a further 6 high street business based in Middlewich, 2 in Crewe and 1 in Nantwich Cheshire to identify solutions to help reinvigorate trading vitality.

In addition to the in store advice received from the Shop Doctor during each of the surgery visits each business will receive a written prescriptions report summarising observations made during the visit and recommendations as to how cost effective improvements might be enabled.

This latest programme of support activity is funded by Middlewich Town Council and Cheshire East Council.

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During a day spent in Millom on Thursday 19th May ‘The Shop Doctor’ met with a range of local retailers and assessed the impact of some of the important first impressions that faced visitors to the Town .

An evening Let’s Talk Shop workshop was attended by over 20 retailers who were given an insight into the initial findings of the day and received key pointers as to how they could take cost effective steps to help improve the impact of their individual businesses.

A report will be compiled to help Copeland Borough Council, who funded the days programme, identify keys issues that are felt to be impacting on retail vitality in the Town,

The meeting also saw opportunity to promote the ‘My Millom, proud to be’ initiative and to enthuse retailers to take advantage of £300 match funding available towards implementing improvements to their shop fronts.

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Copeland Borough Council have recruited “The Shop Doctor” to assess issues within Millom that are impacting on the retail vitality of the shopping environment and identify routes to help reinvigorate trade in the Town.

Following a day spent reviewing the Town an evening retail masterclass will be used to highlight the challenges identified and detail ways that they can be addressed. 

Our ‘Shop Doctor’ has been dispensing specialised retail assistance to independent retail operators across the north west (and beyond) since 1998 and is presently working with a number of local councils delivering a range of projects to help reinvigorate High Streets across the north west.

Click here for more about Millom

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TV Retail ‘Guru’ Mary Portas has today been asked by David Cameron to come up with a plan to help turn around the fortunes of our ailing High Streets.

Central to the review – ordered by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – is the worrying level of sales in town centres, which have dramatically under-performed other locations.

Government figures show that between 2005 and 2010, town-centre sales grew by a paltry 1.5%, while those in out of town shopping centres grew 11.5% and non-store (mail order and internet) soared by 71.5%.

As our ‘Shop Doctor’ knows only too well there will be no simple solutions as the picture across the country is extremely complex and compounded by a range of issues that range from the costs associated with operating on the High Street , the state of the local economy, customer demographic and how supermarkets and out of town retail activities interface with the towns themselves.

Underlying this is the poor condition of many of our High Street environments, parking charges and accessibility and the individual presentation of the shops within them – and then there are the challenges of the varying levels of customer service experiences and customer perception (or misperception) of what it actually costs to shop in the High Street.

Read more about this issue from Retail Gazette here

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The two recent bank holiday weekend’s have had a significantly negative impact on sales at John Lewis department stores. Figures released today reveal that trading at John Lewis fell 9.2 per cent year-on-year in the seven days to April 30th 2011, with all stores more than 12 months old reporting a drop in sales compared to the same period last year.

read full story from Retail Gazette here

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Update 6th May:

Owner of online home and garden products retailer The Range, Chris Dawson, has expressed an interest in purchasing the threatened Focus DIY business, it has emerged today

Retail Gazette have just carried the following announcement :

Almost 4,000 retail jobs are at risk following the home and DIY specialist Focus DIY’s announcement today that it is “filing a notice of intention to appoint administrators”.
Directors at the retailer, which is majority owned by Cerberus Capital and has around 170 stores, have sought consent from its lenders to appoint Ernst & Young (E&Y) as administrators. All stakeholders including staff have been informed of the plans.
E&Y is currently not commenting on the process and cannot confirm whether it will be representing Focus DIY in any administration negotiations.

Read the full story here

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Following the winding up of South Lakes Development Trust (www.sldt.co.uk) Let’s Talk Shop Ltd has taken on the key business support activities originally established by the Trust to help support small local businesses in South Lakeland.

A range of support services are now available from bespoke telephone call handling in the name of the local business or general handling of transferred calls.

By filtering out unnecessary sales calls or ensuring that customers are talking to ‘real people’ rather than taking the risk of recorded messages not being picked up the service proves invaluable to small business operators.

For more information refer to our Business Support page.