Great Success For Small Business Saturday Chiswick

Traders encourage shoppers to stay local for Christmas

Small Business Saturday was celebrating success for the second year running as plenty of local shoppers decided to stay in their neighbourhood to support local traders last Saturday (Dec 6th).

Devonshire Road has lots of independent shops

Local politicians, Mary Macleod and Ruth Cadbury were also supportive of the idea of a day to promote local independant businesses, which was first started in the US.

Mary commented: “We have some fantastic independent shops and businesses on our High Streets, something that contributes to the unique character of our area. We all need to do our bit to support them so they can continue to grow."

Ruth Cadbury said:“So many local businesses are doing a fantastic job. They give us greater choice and that something a little bit special as well as employing many local people. We all need to put our hands in our pockets to back our local businesses.  And it’s not just when doing the family shopping, but anyone who makes purchasing decisions for their workplace, should ‘think local’ first. Small businesses often provide better value for money and a more flexible service than the big companies such as for stationery and catering."

Small Business Saturday is an initiative first started in the U.S. to encourage people to support their local small, independent businesses at this time of year. It has the backing of the Prime Minister and all political parties.

Lin with LBH council leader Steve Curran and Cllr Sue Sampson

As well as independent shops in Turnham Green Terrace and Devonshire Road there are several independent businesses further along the High Road past Chiswick Lane. One of the owners of a Chiswick interior furnishing shop revealed why west London was a better bet for their business than trendy Islington. Lin Leung and Tricia Joyce of Decorexi in the High Road said they have not looked back since locating to Chiswick in May 2013 .

Lin said: “West London is a great hub and Chiswick in particular is a fantastic location, near the river with good road and public transport links into and out of London.”

Lin said running her own business gives her a sense of freedom.

She said: “It’s great having total autonomy in how we run things from when we open to what jobs we take on.”

ShopChiswick, a social media community initiative for London W4 also partnered with Brompton Bike Hire and Fuller’s Brewery to highlight Small Business Saturday.

Five teams took part in the Tweet the Streets Challenge which kicked off at the Brompton Bike Hire dock on Turnham Green Terracewhere the teams were given a number of challenges they needed to complete to win. They made their way around Chiswick visiting local businesses and landmarks throughout the morning.

The cyclists were all local business people and entrepreneurs and the idea was to use their social media and Twitter followers to reach several million people and spread the word about shopping locally.

December 9, 2014