Clare Rayner, The Retail Champion and founder of the Support for Independent Retail campaign, has launched a new event, Enjoy an Independent Easter. Building on the success of the recent Celebrate an Independent Christmas campaign, which saw over 50 UK towns running Christmas Shopping Crawls, retailers are again encouraged to work collaboratively in their community, and, with the support of Local Activation Partners, to create Indie Easter Egg Hunts.
The Indie Easter event, which anticipates up to 100 UK areas running Indie Easter Egg Hunts, follows the success of the Independent Christmas events, and Independent Retailer Month. A family-focused activity, the consumer-facing aspect of the campaign runs for one week before and two weeks after Easter, from Saturday 23rd March to Sunday 14th April, across the majority of the UK school holiday period.
The campaign focuses entirely on increasing footfall and consumer contact, therefore increasing sales in local retail centres – villages, towns or cities. The Indie Easter Egg Hunts require shoppers to visit a number of participating independent outlets to collect egg stickers. When the required number of stickers have been collected, the shopper receives a real chocolate egg and a congratulatory certificate.
Clare says: “The Easter holidays are a great time for independent businesses to create some fun, family activities to boost their footfall. By working collaboratively they can create a real buzz in their area, attracting new customers, increasing awareness of their existence. Retailers can’t afford to sit and wait for customers any more – those who don’t recognise that they need to invest time, effort and energy into re-engaging disenchanted consumers will fail.
“Consumers have fallen out of love with the UK’s high streets, and retailers need to give them a good reason to come back. Step one is to create a good reason, that’s where the campaign activities come in. Step two is for the businesses themselves to really showcase what the consumers have been missing out on! The Indie Easter Egg Hunts, if well implemented, can deliver exactly that."
