Independent shop workers

I just want to give a shout out to a huge number but largely forgotten group of workers. And that is the independent retailers and family owned store workers which are classed as ‘essential’ on Government and local council websites.

I say this not in any way to diminish the wonderful job of the NHS staff or the national chain supermarket staff. Quite rightly for the past few weeks now all media outlets, politicians and various ‘pundits’ have given high praise to the NHS staff. The same outlets have also spent an exhaustive amount of time focussing on the workers at the four big supermarkets, plus other ‘hardware outlets’ such as The Range, B&M or Home Bargains. The BBC’s Panorama even dedicated a programme to the unsung minimum wage heroes and yet none of these acknowledged independent store workers, of which my colleagues and I fall into….’the unforgotten heroes’ have been neglected simply because they are not working for a ‘chain’. Sad.

Thanks to these workers it is these stores and businesses have been functioning as normal to serve their communities in desperately hard circumstances. They have been adhering to the in-store social distancing guidelines whilst trying to serve customers coming in for ‘essential items’. It has been a very interesting couple of weeks for this sector with many trial and tribulations along the way! Let’s remember many of these stores have shelves full of anti-bacterial cleaning products, toilet rolls, soaps, hand gels and face masks as every day products. In the last few weeks it has been a noticeable habit that shoppers who were expecting the instruction to stay at home were preparing to do many jobs around the home. Customers were coming in for paint and decorating items, cooking & baking equipment, home and garden tools and so many bought veggie seed packets, taking the view that they would grow their own in case of food shortages in the months to come.

Our delivery vans were all over the community getting hundreds of sacks of compost dropped off in our local area. We even had enquiries from local chemists enquiring if we could oblige with collecting prescriptions from pharmacies to drop off in the areas we were delivering too on those days. There were even some elderly people phoning up asking if we would drop in with food shopping and they would pay the driver back when he got there. It was certainly services we were able to provide for a community in need.

These stores have all been trading at a loss because customers were generally adhering to the ‘stay home’ guidance. As time goes on it will soon become impossible for these stores to continue, more of the suppliers appear to be shutting down each day and the ones still trading appear to be prioritizing stock only to the big chains.

It is a real shame because the independents can serve their community just as well if not more personally given the chance.