Totally Locally, the award-winning shop local campaign, will launch in Andover today (Saturday 30th November) with Festive Fiver Fortnight where participating local independent shops will have special £5 offers.
Andover is the latest of many towns across the UK to take up the Totally Locally campaign. This free initiative supports Andover’s traders to show the value of local shopping and its benefits for the local economy.
Many of the shops, businesses and stalls will have special offers – highlighting Totally Locally’s message that if everyone in Andover spent just £5 a week in local independent shops, it would bring an extra £9 million into the town’s economy every year.
“This is a chance for locals to discover Andover’s great shops and businesses, and the real difference they make to our town,” said Totally Locally organiser, Louise Ellison.
“As a new retailer in Andover, I have been astounded at the negativity in and about the town. I hear so many people putting Andover down, saying there’s nothing here worth coming into town for, that they can’t find what they want here and so on, but I think they are wrong.”
“I have lived here all my life, and I love our town. Yes I’m as guilty as the next person for spending my money online, but I always try and look locally first, and to be honest, I can get the majority of what I need in town. So if I can, then others can too.”
“That’s why I am launching Totally Locally. To remind people of the great shops we have here and to tell them what they can buy where, and encourage them back through the doors of our local independent retailers. Using our independent eateries, producers and businesses. Improving our sense of community and our economy.”
Totally Locally was created in West Yorkshire, in the UK in 2009 by brand expert Chris Sands and business strategist Nigel Goddard. It has seen successes in towns like Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, recently profiled by UK national press as one of Britain’s most “independent” thriving towns, Leek in Staffordshire where “The Totally Locally Effect” was shown on National TV as having a huge impact on the economy of the town, and Brighouse, recognised one of the top five most positively changed towns in the UK.
“Totally Locally celebrates all local businesses, from Andover’s florists to accountants, from clothes shop to gift shops”, said Nigel Goddard. “These small businesses support many other local businesses, which keep the local economy alive. It’s what the whole fabric of a town like this is built on. The stronger the local economy, the better it is for the whole town”.
“Totally Locally isn’t anti-supermarket or anti-internet”, said Totally Locally founder, Chris Sands. “There is a place for all these things in our lives. It’s just highlighting how a small change in spending habits can make a huge change to Andover. We have a choice to make the place we live that little bit better by just diverting £5 of our weekly spend back into our local economy. And everyone wants their town to be great, don’t they?!”.
Totally Locally Campaign was released as a free kit for towns to download and use in 2012, after demand for it became so huge that the Totally Locally had to create a way for anyone to be able to use.
Totally Locally is a multi-award winning campaign that has a proven record of helping towns to re-asses themselves and work together. Totally Locally is a social enterprise and is based in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, UK.
Totally Locally Andover Links
