Retailers feel the benefit of big shop-local drive

SOCIAL MEDIA Deirdre Biggins has successfully used Facebook to interact with her customers during the recent lockdowns.

Ballinrobe
Oisín McGovern

The push to ‘shop local’ for Christmas could prove to be ‘saving of the town’ of Ballinrobe in the coming months. That’s according to Deirdre Biggins, who runs D Biggins Fashions on the town’s Main Street.
“Christmas was fantastic. I know from speaking to other traders in the town … probably one of the best Christmases I’ve had since the height of the boom, to be honest with you,” Deirdre told The Mayo News recently.
“The local support was fantastic. These Lakes Gift Cards will be the saving of the town when we get going again in March and April time” she says, referring to the Lakes Card gift vouchers that can be redeemed in businesses in and around the Ballinrobe area.
“They were a fantastic initiative,” she adds. “I had a lot of people in spending them since we closed again.”
Huge support
In the past year, ‘non-essential’ retailers like Deirdre’s women’s fashion boutique have been shut on three occasions in response to spikes in Covid cases. Despite this difficult period, Deirdre says that local retailers have gotten huge local support in the run up to the latest lockdown, one that she says was ‘expected’.
“People were encouraged not to travel for their own safety. and a lot of them decided not to that. I know myself the thought of going to Galway for the day would’ve terrified the living daylights out of me. The restrictions kept people local.”
She adds: “People definitely took notice of what was around them and realised that their decisions and where they shop does have an instant effect on the town they live in.
“They are hearing for a long time that ‘every pound you spend in the Irish economy generates whatever’ but people haven’t really taken any notice of it because they’re constantly being bombarded with the multinationals and all the online stuff.
“It’s so easy now, you can literally buy whatever you want from the comfort of your own chair at home. It’s so easy not to make that effort to see what’s in your own local town and to make that decision to support you own local traders.
“People really made the effort this Christmas and I think the town will benefit from it. I think without it, shops would’ve closed during this lockdown and wouldn’t reopen. Possibly because they’ve had such a good Christmas season, it will allow them to recover from this lockdown and to be able to open again.”

Hard pill
With Covid-19 transmission at record highs across the country, small businesses have now been banned from offering click-and-collect services, which had been a lifeline for many retailers.
Deirdre describes this particular measure as ‘a really hard pill to swallow’.
“The fact that they’re not allowing the click-and-collect is a really severe measure for anyone operating on a smaller scale like myself who, while not really depending on the local business, would be a huge part of my day-to-day trade,” she says.
“By taking away the click-and-collect that puts an added cost on local people that they wouldn’t have had before. It’s very difficult to expect someone to pay for delivery when they only live half a mile out the road.
She continues: “I think a lot of retailers in rural Ireland do feel that a lot of the measures are only taking into consideration the bigger urban shopping centres.
“I know it’s impossible for them to split things up but it’s hard to tar us all with the one brush. I think click-and-collect in a small shop like mine wasn’t really going to do any harm, but at the same time the [Covid-19] numbers are absolutely atrocious and this virus is completely out of control, so we do all have to limit our contacts as much as possible,” she adds.

Social-media success
With non-essential retailers having to adapt to very stringent measures imposed by the Government, Deirdre has been able to do business and connect with her customers on social media.
Over the different lockdowns, she has been uploading videos to her shop’s Facebook page of her modelling various items to her 4,500 followers – a number that has grown from just over 1,000 prior to Covid.
“My customers seem to love it, and I get a great reaction from it. I get all my sales through there,” she says.
“It keeps business ticking over. It’s not the same as having the door open, but it’s great. We send stuff out every day to the four corners of the world. We had a couple of deliveries that went out to Australia just before Christmas from people who’ve found me on Facebook.”
She adds: “I can’t really explain why it has been so successful. There’s a bit of banter and craic to me and I don’t take myself too seriously. I do a bit through Instagram as well, but Facebook is absolutely the one that works for me.”