33 BUSINESS ADVICE the independent retailers Faire works with flourishing over the last few years as a result of more of us being able to visit businesses closer to home more easily. This is backed up by vacancy data we saw last year from Savills showing much lower vacancy rates in the capital’s high streets outside of central London compared to 2019. But now, major employers are driving a return to the office in 2025. Just look at Amazon staff who will go back full-time for the first time since the pandemic. PwC, Asda, Starling and Santander are among other businesses to have recently tightened up how often their employees are able to work from home and we should expect more companies to do the same over the coming months. Local high street shops that have experienced an uptick in weekday lunchtime and after-work visitors will have to adjust as a result. Other than footfall challenges during the working week, they will need to have even more reasons to be driving people into store. Weekend visits may become more important, or we could see more independent retailers increasing their opening hours, and adjusting their staffing rotas, to accommodate commuters. AI WILL PUT SMALL SHOPS ON AN EQUAL FOOTING WITH RETAIL GIANTS AI is now much more than a buzzword for businesses big or small. Over the past year, I’ve seen it become fully integrated into the day-to-day operations of the independent retailers Faire works with. As more businesses adopt the right tools, this will help to level the playing field for the owners of smaller shops against their much larger competitors in the year ahead. For example, many small shop owners without the luxury of large marketing teams have already started using ChatGPT to save time on marketing and merchandising strategies, customer emails and to reword product listings. More and more of the work they do is going to be enhanced by AI in this way, whether it’s their point-of -sales system, data on when they need more or less staff and the integration of their accounting systems with the tills and marketing systems they’re using. By saving this time and helping businesses work smarter, AI is giving small retailers the many of the same advantages as the big retailers and we should continue to see it being used in new and innovative ways throughout 2025. COMMUNITY-LED RETAIL WILL RULE 2025 This year I’ve seen some brilliant examples of independent retailers rallying their communities to ‘shop local’, whether it’s the winner of our Open with Faire competition – Laura from Fond Shop Lymm – who organised a treasure hunt to boost engagement across her high street this Christmas, or The Prior in Bristol, which delivered a heartfelt plea to local people to ‘vote with their wallet’ to ensure it survives 2025. Small shops everywhere are increasingly embracing the power of the community to drive awareness and customer loyalty because they know it really strikes a chord among shoppers who also want to preserve the uniqueness and vibrancy of their local areas. Across 2025, we should expect more businesses to adopt this approach by working together, engaging local people and coming up with fantastic new ways to demonstrate that when local businesses can thrive, the entire community will benefit. Visit www.faire.com/en-gb
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