A recent high street survey from AXA Business Insurance found that over 60 per cent of the nation’s shoppers have long running relationships with their local establishments but are more fickle when it comes to supermarket shopping.
A quarter of customers said they like knowing their neighbourhood agents by name and a fifth enjoy being able to order ‘the usual’ when shopping locally.
Yet while a personal connection and superior service have a big impact on buying behaviour, it seems shoppers also value smaller stores for the benefits they bring to the local area.
Almost three quarters of people feel that local shops give an area more character and approximately fifty percent say they’d rather support a local business than a big brand.
Nearly a third of shoppers enjoy a long standing connection with their favourite local business and many small outlets supply goods and services to their local area for generations. Indeed one in every seven people say they stick with the same stores their parents went to and more than half prefer a family run business.
Many admit a sense of nostalgia for the high street of yesteryear with greengrocers, fishmongers and butchers are missed by many when they disappear.
Aside from recongising and supporting the efforts of local businesses like ourselves, this survey did strike a chord for us all at P F Spare Insurance Brokers with the points highlighted in bold text those we like to think we offer our customers for whom we arrange both business and personal insurances. Axa’s survey vindicates the anecdotal evidence we secure from our customers as to why they come to us and then keep returning. With our longest standing customers having been with us since 1962, in an increasingly digital-age we aim to keep these features at the heart of what we do.