Holywell Business News – January 2009
Holywell Business News
Issue 22 Winter 2008/09
Could Woolworths’ loss be your gain?
Although the closure of Woolworths is a tragedy for Holywell and indeed every other town centre where the company had a store, could your business salvage something from the demise of the chain?
If you sell something that Woolworths sold, advertise the fact and keep people who want it coming to Holywell but buying it from you instead.
If you don’t sell anything that Woolworths sold, could you add something they sold to what you already offer and publicise your new lines thus attracting some of their ex-customers to your shop?
Christmas cracker
Around 2,000 people crammed Holywell town centre on Friday 28 November to see the town’s new Christmas lights being switched on, enjoy the town centre funfair and the £1,000 fireworks display, all paid for by Holywell Town Council to attract people to the town.
Several businesses stayed open later than usual to capitalise on business from the people attracted to the town for the event. Several others which didn’t stay open late left their window lights on to enable revellers to do some window shopping which might pursuade them to return to the town during normal shop opening times.
Festive town centre entertainment also took place on various Fridays and Saturdays during December that also atracted additional people to the town.
Flintshire Town Centre Healthchecks Study
The above study to assess the vitality and viability of the county’s town centres, carried out by consultants, Roger Tym & Partners on behalf of Flintshire County Council, has now been completed and copies of the final report are available for scrutiny at Holywell Library and at the Holywell Town Council offices at Bank Place.
The study’s comments about Holywell town centre makes interesting reading and the town council would urge you to study this document, the content of which will form the basis of an action plan that will be prepared for each of the seven towns featured in the study.
Lidl wants to help you
In a previous issue of Holywell Business News we announced that Lidl UK Ltd had agreed to pay for and erect a notice in the car park of its Holywell store urging people to also make linked visits to other town centre shops so that they too can benefit from the additional shoppers the store is attracting to the town.
Well, the sign, which can be clearly seen as shoppers leave the store, has now been erected and Lidl’s willingness to help other town centre businesses to benefit from its presence in the town has been well publicised in the local media. Holywell Town Council hopes your business benefits from this joint initiative between Lidl and Holywell’s town centre manager.
So does Tesco
In addition to the sign now erected in the Lidl car park urging shoppers at the store to visit other town centre shops, Tesco also wants to help other town centre businesses and some of the money it gave to improve the link between the store and the town centre is going to be used to upgrade the subway from their car park to Tower Gardens and pay for signage to direct new shoppers to the town towards other town centre shops.
Money for some town centre projects
Following on from the Flintshire Town Centre Healthchecks Study, Flintshire County Council has made the sum of £100,000 available for town centre projects in the seven towns featured in the study for the year-ending 31 March 2009.
Meetings have been held between Flintshire County Council and Holywell Town Council and a number of projects capable of being completed by the above deadline have been identified by the town council and members now await the outcome of decisions by Flintshire County Council about the suitability of these suggestions.
The County council has also said that a further sum of money, possibly amounting to £500,000 that will be divided between the seven towns featured in the study, could be available for the year 2009/10. If this proves to be so, wider consultation with other stakeholders in each of the seven towns will take place in due course.
Help with your ICT
Thinking of investigating how ICT (information and communications technology) could help your business, or need some ICT help and advice but don’t know who to ask or are worried how much it might cost? If so, let us remind you that you can get up to four hours of help from Flntshire County council’s ICT Advisory Service for FREE.
Want to find out more about the service first? If so, visit their website www.gratisguidance.co.uk where you’ll find a wealth of information that could benefit your business.
Haven’t got a computer or you haven’t got access to the internet? If not, just visit Futures@Holywell in High Street or Holywell Library’s ICT and Learning Centre where you can get this access and all the confidential help and advice you will need to make you ‘Internet savvy’.
Are you capitalising on this sector of the market?
Wheelchair users and people with other disabilities such as sight impairment throughout the UK have a combined disposable income of around £1 billion. They’ve got to buy their products and services somewhere and they generally spend their money in towns where they feel safe to visit and with businesses they can access.
Holywell, with its pedestrianised town centre is an ideal shopping venue for people with such disabilities but is your business taking full advantage of this? Is the door to your shop or office too narrow to enable wheelchair users to gain access? Is there a step that prevents wheelchair access or over which a visually impaired person could trip and fall because it’s not adequately highlighted? If so, your business could be losing potential income. Solutions to these and other access problems are frequently easy to overcome and at little cost. To find out more, contact Flintshire Access on 01352-756804 or by e-mail at: bph367@btconnect.com and don’t forget, if your premises are wheelchair-friendly, say so in all your promotional literature.
For a PDF of the wheelchair-friendly logo that you can include in your promotional literature, contact town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts, at med@impactcom.biz
A little bit of Welsh makes new friends
Although there isn’t any legislation yet to make private sector businesses operate bilingually, many are introducing some element of Welsh into their operations because they know it’s good for business from a marketing and customer loyalty angle.
So, the next time your business has to have headed stationery, business cards or promotional literature printed, why not do it bilingually. There’s a lot of advice and help available and occasionally some grant aid towards the cost as well.
Interested? If so, contact town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts, and he’ll point you in the right direction.
Holywell tourism brochure
Holywell Town Council will again be paying £1,500 to print 20,000 tourism brochures for 2009 to attract more visitors to the town, some of whom might spend some of their money in your shop while they’re here.
This number of brochures may sound a lot but many towns print as many as 50,000 and even more to attract shoppers and the more we can print, the further they can be distributed. After the first 20,000 the cost per 1,000 brochures is only £30. Are you prepared to invest £30 in your town and in your business by sponsoring an extra 1,000 copies? If so, contact town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts, on 01745-710333. A copy of the 2008 brochure is enclosed with this newsletter.
Holywell is now a Fairtrade town
Holywell has received Fairtrade status and a wide range of Fairtrade products can now be purchased from many town centre shops.
With the buying decisions of more and more people now being made on ethical and environmental grounds, could stocking Fairtrade products provide your business with more customers and increase your profits?
Interested? If so, contact Roberta Owen of Holywell’s Fairtrade Committee on 01352-710714 or town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts, on 01745-710333. A list of businesses that stock Fairtrade products will be included on the new Holywell website when it is launched this Spring.
No, not just a statement, but the name of a UK-wide initiative that aims to attract more walkers to participating towns by publicising scenic walks in the area that has just been launched in Holywell.
If more walkers can be encouraged to visit Holywell it means more money is likely to be spent in the town. Now, a committee, of which town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts has been appointed chairman, is planning to develop the initiative by devising scenic walks that start or end in or close to the town centre and investigating ways of publicising these walks. Holywell Town Council has also agreed to support the initiative financially in the hope it will provide extra trade for town centre businesses.
Would you like to trade online?
A recent survey carried out by Shopzilla found that 11 million people in the UK shop online at least twice a week and that 90% of Britons shop online at least once a month. Another survey carried out by Verdict Consulting concluded that online retail sales is set to grow by 129% by 2012 and that by failing to have an online presence, the UK retail industry is losing out on more than £2.3 billion of trade each year.
Trading online is no longer the exclusive domain of large multi-nationals and if you think you can sell some of the products or services your business provides online and would like to find out more, you can get free and impartial advice about setting up an online shop and indeed any ICT-related matter from Flintshire County council’s ICT Officer, Oli Rhys by telephone on 01352-703224 or by e-mail at: oli.rhys@flintshire.gov.uk
One company that provides online shop packages for small businesses is Eclipse Internet. If you’d like to find out more about online shops and trading online, e-mail town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts, on med@impactcom.biz and he will forward an e-mail he received from Eclipse Internet that’s full of useful information and links to where you can find out even more about the benefits of online trading.
The scourge of plastic bags
As you probably know, the Welsh Assembly Government is thinking of making single-use plastic bags by shops in Wales illegal for environmental reasons. Some supermarkets and other large stores have already capitalised on the marketing and customer loyalty benefits of being seen as an environmentally responsible business and are offering extra points on store cards to encourage shoppers to bring their own shopping bags.
Others have adopted a policy of asking customers at the checkout point if they want their goods packed into plastic bags before actually making any available.
Small businesses may not be able to offer customers points on a store card but staff can ask customers if they need a plastic bag before automatically popping their purchases into one. That way, your business will also be seen as one that’s as environmentally responsible as the multiples and, although it will only be a small amount, you’ll also save some money by not having to buy as many plastic bags.
Your representatives on the town council
The following councillors, two of whom own businesses in the town centre, represent the Holywell Town Centre Ward on Holywell Town Council:
§ Councillor Peter Curtis 01352-711738
§ Councillor Margaret Jabbitt 01352-715189
§ Councillor Barry Lambert 01352-711478
§ Edward Brian Palmer 01352-715707
Councillor Curtis also represents the Holywell Town Centre Ward on Flintshire County Council.
The two councillors who own businesses in the town centre are: Councillor Margaret Jabbitt who owns Crafty J’s in Cross Street and Councillor Ted Palmer who owns a hairdressers in Brynford Street.
Don’t hesitate to contact any of them if you wish to discuss any town centre issues
Co-op buys the Somerfield chain
Unless you already know, the Co-op has purchased the Somerfield chain. The Co-op hasn’t made any announcements yet about the future of the Somefield stores but town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts is in contact with them and has asked to be kept informed about their plans for the Holywell store and whether they intend to rebrand it as a Co-op store.
Holywell Business News is financed and produced by Holywell Town Council with the aim of providing town centre businesses with useful business information.
Holywell Town Council, Bank Place Offices, Holywell, Flintshire CH8 7TJ. For more information, please contact Medwyn Roberts. Alternatively, you can inform the editor of the corrections by telephone on 01745-710333 or e-mail them to: med@impactcom.biz
