Falling back in love with the high street

Shoppers rediscovered their local high streets during the Covid-19 pandemic – a welcome trend which has given independent retailers a major opportunity to move their businesses forward.

Shop owners also responded with speed to the challenge of the pandemic by changing the way they do business, with e-commerce and cashless transactions on the rise.

Those changes came to the fore at a Lancashire Business View roundtable discussion on the retail sector’s future, held in association with cash and carry wholesaler Stax Trade Centres and chaired by publisher Richard Slater.

Stax owner David Hibbert said: “A lot of people in the independent retail market for a good number of years were planning on exiting. There was a view that it had run its course and they were going to sell out to a restaurant or something else.

“Then Covid hit and it just completely flipped for independent retailers. They suddenly became key retailers.

“They were local. People weren’t driving in to big stores, in fact the big stores weren’t open initially, and it’s given a new lease of life to the independent sector.”