Christmas and New Year Shopping!
Well Christmas is here again and some of us are planning our forays into the likes of Glasgow or Newcastle so we can shop till we drop and save a few quid on the bargains that are to be had that is after we have spent £70 odd quid on fuel -£15 on munchies for the journey- another £10 on magazines to kill the boredom of the 5 hour round trip oh and probably £8 on parking then we can come home and say I saved at least £50.
The point is sometimes using local companies on the door step is more advantageous to all concerned whether it be for shopping or business to business.
Personally everything about The Whitehaven Guide is locally sourced, we use local printers Print Express, Kmi provide the web site and Brian Sherwen provides our Photography.
Obviously with so much choice on the internet one could go to numerous suppliers that are cheaper or claim to be cheaper but that could be false economy and I know that ‘Service' will be something that is deemed as so last year, as was mentioned above sometimes the figures don't stack up and the term you get what you pay for springs to mind.
Let's face it if we all wanted cheap we would all be cruising around in our Ladas running it on carrot juice or something and going home to our prefabs, but we don't and why? Because cheap always comes at a price.
It's always nice to know who you are dealing with, having a name to go with a face; this is something that you will always get when using local businesses on the door step.
When dealing with local companies they always give you something that means more to them than anything else and that is they're reputation! They put they're reputation into your hands and if the jobs done right we hand it on to friends and family. That is why I think the after-Service in Whitehaven and West Cumbria is exceptional, the back up is as important as the service initially provided and the reputation of the company is again in our hands.
Obviously local companies have got to do their part as well, and to be fair they do a pretty good making sure that we feel that we are getting good value for money.
The small independents in the area know their stuff, with Sales throughout the year and new stock constantly arriving,
Speaking to Danny Maudlin from Clothes shop ‘Contemporary' on King St. he is a believer in spending locally, he says ‘we travel across the UK 5-6 times a year buying stock and Barcelona twice a year for the trade shows, we have to know what is coming out 6 months before hand, and because we are an independent we have more maneuverability on what we stock, a lot of the times we are way ahead of the nationals on fashion ' Danny laughs, ‘we have people come in and say we have just been to Newcastle and found nothing, then they spend Money with us' With a healthy balance of 80% local trade and 20% Visitor, this is where the ‘reputation' word comes up again.
Again it's the independents that lead the way, take Shooz n Sox for instance a small independent Shoe shop, they have been going strong for eight years with Margaret looking after Toddlers to Teenage Toes with well over 20 years experience, when asked what makes her small business the busiest independent shoe shop in town Margaret says' we have always offered a huge range to cover all budgets but more importantly we don't just sell shoes,we fit them, nd that's the difference, we know our customers names and they know ours , it's the personal touch we offer and our reputation is excellent'
I'm referring to all businesses here from Solicitors- Accountants-Shops it's all the same really no matter what your looking for people deal with people, look locally first it could save you a packet and a lot of time as well, as for choice, there is more than enough in Whitehaven And the surrounding areas, why bother with call centers when you can actually call in and see someone face to face, you might even get a Cuppa if you ask nicely...
