By Minttu Monika Marjomaa
Buy local, keep money in the community, support small businesses… We hear this time and again but browsing dozens of tiny boutiques or visiting craft markets is easier said than done when you have a full-time career and small children.
Helen Robinson learned this in December 2018, when it was time for the annual Christmas gift haul. She had previously bought everything from the Internet giants while feeling guilty
about the amount of useless packaging, the constant passing of delivery vans, the emissions and the murky ethics of it all. At the same time, she knew going to her local north London independent shops was impossible with a buggy and two restless toddlers knocking things off the shelves.
“I was feeling really conflicted about it, internally,” says Robinson, 44, speaking from her Victorian house in Crouch End. “And then I had - it’s cringy to say this, but - a bit of a lightbulb moment. I thought that I could create something for my local community, a platform that all the sellers could use.”
This is how Gifted Local came about. Robinson started with just a few postcodes around her area: Wood Green, Crouch End, Muswell Hill, and went around looking for local creatives.
The idea is this: the products, which focus on homeware, fashion and toys, are sold on the website. The customers, who mostly live in north London make orders, which are then minimally packaged and hand-delivered by the seller.
Most of Robinson’s customer base live in idyllic suburban areas and have good jobs and income to spare. There’s something picturesque about the Gifted Local’s selection of artisan goods. This is not the place to find mundane necessities like a toilet brush or a pair of pliers, but instead embroidered tea towels, Merino wool baby blankets, crystal-infused hand soap or £100 paper flower bouquets.
Global vs. local
Robinson’s business savvy comes from her 15-year career in international marketing for media conglomerate Viacom.
“But I’ve always, always wanted to either work for a small business or own one. The feeling you get when you make a decision and you can immediately see the effects of it, and you have a voice, is amazing,” says Robinson. “You just can’t compare it to working for a big corporation where your boss is in another country.”
Though the USP is the local focus, Robinson doesn’t think expansion is out of the question. The site could essentially work for a larger area, to help people search the site with their own postcode and find their local artisans.
Cecilia Child sells traditional textiles through Gifted Local. She thinks online retail is good for small businesses but only when combined with the traditional kind.
“I like to think that there is space for both. There are lots of issues with the high street, on top of the current pandemic, that make it incredibly difficult for small independents to survive,” says Child.
“This tends to lead to homogenous high streets which makes Gifted Local such an interesting idea. It can bring the best of your local businesses into your home and enable people to discover businesses that they wouldn’t know are on their doorsteps.”
The future of small businesses is under threat
Gifted Local is still in functioning amidst the global crisis, though the deliveries are made with protective equipment and while respecting social distancing guidelines. Many companies like it have not been able to adapt to the sudden drop in demand.
“Maybe the post-Covid future will look like the present, when you can order nearly anything with two-day delivery but can’t set foot into most shops,” writes journalist Katie Herzog in The Guardian.
“The bars, restaurants, retailers, music venues, art spaces, theatres and coffee shops that make cities feel vibrant will probably go belly-up. - - Perhaps Amazon will buy up storefronts and install sterile, cashier-less grocery stores and retailers where no one actually interacts. Post-pandemic, some people might actually prefer it.”
Herzog is exaggerating, but only a little. According to a National Statistics Office survey, one in four businesses in the UK has already closed its doors due to the pandemic. The question of who makes it through will ultimately be up to their customers.
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