Retailer survey…take 2

Yesterday I went out onto the streets of Haddington for the second time to speak to the retailers. I have to admit to being nervous, especially after my first experience which consisted mostly of comments like “Too busy, sorry” and “What do you expect us to do with the 5000 bags I have in my stock room?”. I decided to focus on the shops who had already expressed some interest in the campaign and the chain stores.

I have to say the whole experience was wonderful and I was grinning like a Cheshire cat at the end of the 2 hours! The chains were easy in so much as I was generally given names and numbers of Head Office peeps, and I will have to make a few phone calls next week to track the right people down, but it was the small independent stores who really made my day. In particular I’d like to thank Joe Forte, Simon Kesley and John Maine for their enthusiasm and comments. They are not only willing to back the town bag and the campaign in general, but more importantly they are already scaling back on the amount of plastic bags they are purchasing, and they don’t hand out bags unless asked. One of them even advised a customer they didn’t really need a bag for their greetings card!! The other star of the day was Mr Watson who owns our local stationers. I was in his shop for about half and hour chatting about his customers and how far many of them travel just to use his store. He was really interested in the whole campaign, will happily put up a poster, and would stock some town bags.

I realise there’s still a long way to go but this is the type of boost I really needed to keep plugging away with this campaign. It’s great to know that some of our most popular independant shops are going to back us

Now I need to tackle the big T (Tescos). Wish me luck!

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