Independents of Shrewsbury

Organised by Shrewsbury entrepreneurs, Fay Easton and Cindy Edwards, who are giving their time freely to help build trade and footfall for Shrewsbury's unique Independent Businesses.

Attend to hear how to build your business online and explore how we work together to ensure independent businesses can not only survive but flourish and continue to enrich the town centre.

Agenda:

• 6.00pm - Welcome & 'The value of Independents to Shrewsbury Town Centre'
• 6.20pm - Trading in Shrewsbury Town Centre, with an independent retailer
• 6.40pm - Building sales on Amazon, with Chris Turton, a seasoned Amazon seller and vendor expert with eight years experience of growing all sized businesses on the marketplace and has 11 years Ecommerce expertise
• 7.00pm - Building sales on TikTok - Chloe has 182k followers on Instagram and 1.5 million likes on Tik Tok. She will share: - How to choose the right products for your business to get footfall - The power of using social media to promote your business to potential customers - The best scripted videos/posts to maximise response
• 7.15pm - Discussion, questions and next steps
• 8.00pm - Close

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Shrewsbury Town Centre needs economic regeneration for the independent sector.

One of the town’s finest selling points to attract and develop trade is the number and quality of independent retailers and restaurateurs.

On a recent survey of the streets of Shrewsbury, an incredible 515 independent retailers and restaurants were logged.

The ‘customer and marketing appeal’ of these retail and hospitality businesses is ‘off the scale’ and yet there is little collective marketing to promote this special appeal.

In general, town centres across the country are suffering from decades of retail and service business exodus to out-of-town shopping areas and this has scarred British town centres.

While some of the chains can prosper and the night-time economy flourishes, independent retail ‘per se’ is struggling.

This meeting is to discuss how local people and a few enlightened businesses can support local independents and help secure more businesses so that these special enterprises can thrive.

If ‘Independents of Shrewsbury’ was promoted as a consumer brand, customer numbers could increase, more independent entrepreneurs might be attracted to take units in the area, footfall numbers would grow, and Shrewsbury could become known locally and nationally for the quality and range of independent trades.

This town is blessed with its presence of over 500 owner/operated businesses and we want to assist with driving footfall, building on and offline sales and helping our local independent business sector.

A national exemplar could develop.

Come along to the meeting and let's pool ideas as to how we can make the diamond of local independent retail in Shrewsbury, really glitter.