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Running High Street Business, What are the real issues: YInsurance.co.uk

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Running a High Street Business,

Business insurance

Running a shop is fraught with difficulties that can really get in the way of business; we took the time to speak to a few owners about Regulation and trying to make a living?

One of the major issues with having premises these days is the accessibility, by this we mean, how easy are you to find, and park near?  One of the owners we spoke to have a shop in a small busy village, he had been there for just short of 30 Years.  Eight years ago, the local council had started installing parking restrictions, at first there was only a single warden occasionally patrolling. Within the year the parking restrictions had extended hours, and roads. The council in their defence had said because people had started parking nearer to the station, it was causing traffic control issues.  By the first financial years end our owner had seen a drop of 20% in turnover.

Approaching the council seems to be a dead end also, they seldom seem to be interested, and the death of the highs street can sometimes seem to be the unfortunate goal. It doesn’t affect the licensing trade as much, as it’s seen as more of a night time business, (this trade has already been hit by the smoking ban anyhow and has seen a massive downturn in new premises)

One Group of traders in surrey successfully lobbied the council for a year on proposed parking restriction and won, it requires unilateral support from all businesses together with the residents however.

Another major issue that seems to raise its head is staff, now I know from personal experience that this is a hard one. You want to have reliable, trustworthy, punctual, staff.  It isn’t asking a lot, is it?  Well, feedback about finding all of those attributes in one package is becoming rarer, one interesting fact that did come about from this was that having the older generations of shop staff, was better for the core values that the owner/operator wanted. It would be very easy to think that this spells the death of the high street , but certain internet businesses are doing a bad job with customers service that various service industries are making a good living from offering service ,and value to those who don’t make the bottom line the only priority.