Support Independents was launched in November 2011 as a way to raise the profile of independent businesses in the UK.
Support Independents is on Twitter and Facebook as a way to spread the word to potential customers, existing customers and other independent businesses. It is often too easy to go into a chain store rather than a local independent retailer and that is what this is about. Reminding and raising awareness of the alternatives.
There are 4,478,595 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK today (source, 2011) accounting for 99.9% of all enterprises. Almost all of these enterprises (99.2%) are classed as small with 0 to 49 employees. This makes independent businesses and small enterprises extremely important, who knew there were so many of us!!
It is also this group that probably receive the least amount of support from banks and other organisations with government business support programmes often seeing cuts. This blog therefore hopes to raise our spirits, raise awareness and build a network of independent businesses.
Who am I?
My name is Lucy and I am a marketer, designer, maker and independent seller of vintage homewares. I am a long time budding entrepreneur but have only just taken the leap by opening an online shop. It was then that the frustration kicked in at the thought of people buying mass produced high street items over my individual, carefully selected and loved vintage collectibles. I therefore felt the need to SHOUT about independent businesses.
You get the idea! Welcome to Support Independents! x
