The British Retail Consortium yesterday (January 15) warned that communities could find themselves with “sparser high streets” – as two-thirds of leading retailers said they would be forced to hike prices to cope with increases in National Insurance costs from April.
While Wanstead High Street is home to lots of independent businesses, the owners and managers of these smaller firms are also worried about rising prices and about putting these onto the customer.
Megan O’Halloran, of La Bakerie, said that the micro-bakery’s prices “aren’t exactly where we’d want them to be”.
She told this paper: “It’s hard at the minute after the cost-of-living crisis and Covid.
“We try and charge the minimum of what we can while still making money – ideally, our prices would be a lot lower to try and entice people in.”
La Bakerie is not only competing with around 15 other cafes on Wanstead High Street, but also with big chains, like Gail’s, that are starting to move in.
It is thanks to its regular customers that the bakery can keep going, says Megan, and the team is hoping to trial a loyalty scheme to maintain these connections.
She said: “We’re lucky because being a bakery [as well as a cafe] is our unique selling point, but I know that a lot of other cafes that are independent are really struggling at the minute.
“There’s only so much business on this high street to go around.
“But, we have our regular customers and that’s what keeps us afloat.”
Owner of Robins Pie & Mash Melanie Coulson agreed, saying while business is generally “going well”, this is largely down to having “lots of regular customers”.
The family-run chain has six shops across east London and Essex, and is four years away from celebrating its 100th anniversary.
Some of its regular customers include West Ham supporters, who come to the shop before home games, and older members of the community – who Melanie worries will be pushed away by changes to parking.
She told this paper: “It’s just the parking round here that’s a pain.
“The old people haven’t got the RingGo app, and have nowhere to park.
“But apart from that, business is going well, touch wood.”
Several of the businesses we spoke to said they feel “lucky” to live in Wanstead or run a shop in Wanstead High Street.
Lajos Gulyas, the manager of The Ginger Pig’s Wanstead branch, said: “We are a little bit lucky because we live in Wanstead, and the people are very ‘local people’.
“So, we have very regular customers – and they always come back.
“What we see every week is that 95 per cent [of our shoppers] are regular customers.”
As a slightly bigger chain – with nine shops across the capital – Lajos said the butcher’s brand name does help them reach more people, but they still do not get many “new faces”.
But overall he was positive, saying: “The business is going up and up every year.”
