High energy bills and shoppers spending less is causing some shops to change the way they operate
North Street in Bedminster is vibrant, picturesque and championed by a roster of independent businesses ranging from delis and cafes to plant shops and the Tobacco Factory.
But to what extent has the ongoing economic situation and cost of living impacted traders at North Street?
We talked to 11 traders to see how business is going and the impacts the cost of living crisis and high energy bills have had. Here’s what we found:
We talked to 11 traders to see how business is going and the impacts the cost of living crisis and high energy bills have had. Here’s what we found:
5. Tryla
At Tryla, Jess, said: "We just don’t have a huge amount in the way of sales. But in terms of workshops, people are still engaging with that side of things. I think despite hardships, people are wanting to do things for themselves. Getting into little crafts and stuff is quite an accessible way to entertain yourself and do something that can be quite budget-friendly. It has just been slower to the point where I get quite excited now when we make a sale. I'll actually message Alice, who owns the shop, and say, “I just made £20!” which is not really the most exciting of things. It has just really slowed down, and being an independent business, it gets a bit stressful. We have changed to a system here now where we do volunteer shifts to try and save money because we just simply don't really have the money flowing through. We have people that come and do work but for use of the studio spaces instead of actual financial pay. So we've had to adapt our functioning to work around the fact that there is less money coming in. But we still need the people to do the work. But at least we’ve been able to do that. We get people coming in and if we don’t have something that they want I quite often say to them, “I'm sure you can find it on Amazon or something”, I get people quite a lot replying they don’t want to do that, they want to shop locally and contribute to independent businesses and that's something that I’ve noticed. It’s really nice that even though people are struggling, they still want to support us.”
6. Ivory Flowers
Georgia, the owner of Ivory Flowers, said: “We can definitely look back at our sales from pre-Covid and they were more than now. There’s definitely a constant downward spiral, which isn’t that great. We went from having three members of staff in here and now it’s only me. So I think that’s probably like the biggest telltale of the cost of living crisis. I just can’t afford to employ people because flowers are a luxury product. You can’t expect people to just come in and get something when they’re struggling themselves. I completely understand it. But yeah, that’s how it's had a knock-on effect.”
7. Zero Green
Anwen at Zero Green said: “My partner and I took over here a year and a half ago and I think it was a particularly difficult time to be taking over. People were very worried about their energy bills and their mortgage rates which meant that they were being more careful. But over time, slowly things do seem to be getting better and bit by bit the business is actually getting busier, which is great. Our takings are improving each month, which we’re really grateful for. I think because of what we do, people are still very concerned about environmental issues and they’re coming here because they care about plastic packaging. And I think people, with a bit less of a cost of living crisis on it, gives them a bit more room to prioritise different things.”
8. Friendly Records
Tom, the owner, said: “I don't know if the cost of living crisis has really impacted us to be honest. It doesn’t feel like it has. The year has been good, if not better than, previous years.”
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