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A local book shop has taken on the challenge of promoting the Royal Wedding by adding knitted figures to its window display as the big day draws closer. Knit your own Royal Wedding has been the surprise best seller of the season, says Kate Swann, chief executive of bookseller WHSmith, which competes with this local shop. What I like about the signs, is that the message is not static. It invites shoppers to come back and have another look as they are "Still busy knitting the royal wedding party".

There is an assumption that local shops run by local people have a competitive advantage over local shops run by multiples, such as Tesco. However, while independent operators may have some strengths, these may not be competitive advantages. On two recent shop visits I was struck by the stories that the retailers told about their shop's histories. In one case it was about how a former owner had developed the shop to serve the new train station. In the other, it was about how a former member of staff was remembered by naming the bakery area after her. In both cases these stories were not written down and recorded. I suggested to both owners that some customers would really appreciate knowing about the local history of their independent story. Think about it in the same way that you establish the provenance of a local product that you sell. People buy into the story. What is interesting is to see how Waitrose in Islington, a newcomer in a former Woolworths store, has filled its...

Last month's quarterly sales numbers for Sainsbury's provide an uncomfortable benchmark for local retailers - shoppers are not spending as much as they used to. Justin King, the managing director who has been built up as the saviour of Sainsbury's over the past few years, is starting to get negative press. City analysts are lining up to say sell. Clive Black of Shore Capital noted that "Sainsbury has done more to confirm the magnitude of the deceleration in consumer activity than any other recent update". In plain English, shoppers are spending less at a faster rate than expected. Or as Mr King said: "The change has been quite dramatic. The surprise is just how sudden that is." And how long. Shoppers stopped spending in January and were still not back in March. Like-for-like sales in his shops were down 0.8 per cent year-on-year. Shoppers were, on average, putting one less item in their basket when they did the weekly shop and buying it later on a ...

Taking part is the sign of a good retailer, analysis by Menzies Distribution claims and Paul Cheema, who runs a Costcutter in Coventry learned lots from teaming up with Heineken in the ACS's store challenge. He was persuaded to remerchandise his beer, cider and ale range and to promote a big night in deal with pizzas selling alongside lager. Mr Cheema says he delisted lines to bring in new products and changed the flow from cider, ale, lager to ale, cider, lager. This helped him grow ale and cider sales by 8.2 per cent and 31.6 per cent respectively year on year. Selling two pizzas and eight cans of lager for £10 was a big success. He also used in-store tastings to generate theatre. As a result of working with Heineken, Mr Cheema says he has been able to do similar work with other suppliers. For example, working with Cadbury has increased his confectionery sales by 9 per cent. Using supplier insight works. It is simple, low cost and easy to follow.

At the National Convenience Show last month I saw some newish suppliers that may be of interest to UK convenience stores seeking new brands to stand out from their competition. One that stood out was Just Crisps, a family business from Staffordshire, that is attempting to fill the family owned and up and coming brand gap created by Tyrrells having been sold to a private equity firm in 2008. Tyrrells used to get great reviews like "if you can get hold of Tyrrells crisps (usually in health and organic shops) don't baulk at the price. They are well worth it and very addictive. Etc" from 2005. I bumped into proprietor Anthony Froggatt in the press office and laughed at his claim that his crisps were 100% British, saying surely most crisps were. But oil makes up 30% of the content, he quickly responded, and my crisps are made with rapeseed oil, which is from the UK, unlike other crisps that use imported sunflower oil. Later, visiting his stand I tasted the product which ...

"We're just fooling ourselves if we think that the staff at Tesco Express can't smile or be pleasant. We've got to be much more than just nice people," an un-named retailer tells wholesaler Menzies Distribution as part of its major research exercise to better understand its customers. David Cooke, its commercial and marketing director, writing in InPublishing warns publishers - particularly magazine publishers - that they risk losing a large and successful route to market. Why? His analysis splits the independent retailer universe into four types: entrepreneurs, who are doing well and join everything, always looking for better ways to do things and will pick up tips and tactics from wherever they can get them. They can compete with the multiples but they are prepared to cut out a category if they felt they would have a better or more profitable business by doing so traders, who mainly have one shop, know what they want to do but do...