What Bristol Independent retailers can do on Independents Day – 4 July 2012:

• Organise something special – no matter how small – for 4 July, when we mark Bristol Independents Day. This could be a special offer only available to people quoting “Bristol Independents” when they come into your shop, or make a booking. Tell us what you’re doing, and we’ll include it in city-wide promotion. Put together, all these little things collectively become a big city-wide event.
• Food retailers in particular can help draw people into our high streets and provide additional interest to keep them shopping! This could be something really small – like a special Bristol Bun, or a Bristol Banger on the menu for one day only. You could also take your shop on to the street with some mobile cooking.
• Display a Bristol Independents Day poster (coming soon); hand out some postcards for our Independents Day competition; offer a competition prize and we’ll include you in competition publicity.
• Raise the flag of Independence on your high street (this makes a great stunt for the local press) – let us know if you have a suitable flag pole!
• Become a Bristol Independents Ambassador for your high street, and get other traders involved. Spread the word! Use the Bristol Independents branding on websites and in print (contact us for artwork). Tell other people that you’re getting involved.

What Bristol Independents retailers can do in the longer-term:

• We offer a collective Bristol Independents branding, so shoppers can recognise you as an Independent. Pool your marketing resources, and market yourselves together by high street, using the Bristol Independents brand. Let us know if you would be interested in stocking Bristol Independents bags or mugs.
• We can also help to produce promotional postcards for your high street/area.
• We are building-up a set of case studies of initiatives that have been tried in high streets around the city – of what’s worked, and how things were achieved. Let us know what’s worked for your street.
• Use the Bristol Independents website to publicise your events and promotions – just send details to us by email: bristol.independents@gmail.com
• Sign-up to accept the Bristol Pound. www.bristolpound.org
• Get involved with your local Traders’ Association.
• We can help make connections between groups of traders, community groups and entrepreneurs to develop projects that will bring supermarket selling techniques to the high street, e.g. e-marketing, late night opening, home delivery, on-line ordering, click and collect etc. If these projects are community-group led, then they may be eligible for some funding.
• We can help develop and work with other promotions e.g. putting together a welcome pack for Freshers at the University, with recipe postcards featuring local high streets.
• You might want something bigger, like a street market; a pop-up arts venue in a vacant unit or a drop-in temporary café where local shoppers can leave their feedback on what improvements they’d like to see in the area. We can make connections with other groups who can share their experience on setting-up similar events.

What community groups can do:

• Let us know what would improve your high street, or what help you need to make your high street thrive.
• We can help make links between community groups and Neighbourhood Partnerships/Forums in your area to discuss physical high street improvements. For example, Neighbourhood Partnerships have their own road budgets, which might be directed towards high street safety improvements. Subsidised cycle stands are available via a BCC scheme. Community payback schemes might be suitable for high street clear-ups.
• Neighbourhood Partnerships also have an annual “Community chest” fund, which community groups could apply to for e.g. installing benches or planters on the high street.
• We can help connect high street groups with arts organisations to develop projects for your area e.g. in-shop theatre; graffiti artwork on security grilles; temporary exhibitions in vacant shops; local history projects on long-lost shops; photography exhibition of favourite traders. A diverse approach will help to engage a diverse range of potential shoppers.

“Local authorities, landlords, retailers and the public need to work together to really animate the spaces they occupy; re-imagined as destinations for retail, socialising, culture, health, wellbeing, creativity and learning.” (Mary Portas)

Let’s make this happen in Bristol by working together!