Independents Day

After a year of graft, you probably aren’t shy to our story.

For newcomers, we started documenting the hidden gems and unsung heroes around our city and the stories that came with them in an attempt to give people an alternative guide. The response so far from our journey has been phenomenal and people have gone as far as saying our website made them stay in Liverpool after certain disillusion. Whilst we are proud of how far we have come, we aren’t naive –  we know how far there is still to go. Such knowledge has led us to attempt a national day of celebrating independents – shoot for the moon, right?

Our campaign is for a day of celebration of independents on July 4th. You’ve heard of Independence day – well this is Independents Day. A day of shopping local that will act as a boost for your local economy both on the day and in the future as we hope to create a huge buzz about shopping local as standard. Whilst we are ambassadors of shopping local every day we understand that it isn’t always feasible. However, sadly, the idea of ‘local’ diminishes more and more every day as more places close, the further away the alternatives become. Pubs close by the day, butchers by the week and fish mongers are near enough extinct. Modern day consumerism has an overarching demand for convenience and whilst you have to walk a few less feet to get your tea, our high street is rapidly decaying. Fear not patrons, unlike most people who complain about the current state of society, we have been offering solutions to this and on July 4th want to have a massive version of what we encourage every day. We want Liverpool flooded with people on their way to independents. We want hairs cut in local barbers, meat bought from local butchers, coffee bought local coffee shops and it’d be rude not to have a tipple in a local pub to finish off a day being a hometown hero. We don’t want masses of hooligans in Guy Fawkes masks shouting “We don’t want horse in our burgers” outside a certain supermarket, we want a day of togetherness. We want people from all walks of life to proudly walk their streets and only stop when they see an independent.

There is nothing like a good statistic to back up an argument, did you know 70p of every £1 spent in an Independent stays in the local economy as opposed to 10p when spent in a chain? Someone once told us where you spend your pounds is a representation of the world you want to live in Imagine what we could do with that extra 60p every £1 we spend. Do you think graduates would be queuing up for Job Seekers Allowance? Nurses, Firemen and Policemen would be made redundant? We’ve seen the difference in Liverpool since we started and whilst we have blogs set up in other cities to provoke the status quo, we’d love to have a huge day of celebration in the mean time. We want #IndependentsDay trending. We want pictures of you with friends and loved ones out clinking glasses and cheering. We want queues out the door for restaurants. We want butchers to run out of steak. We want pumps to run dry in local pubs. We want the special in restaurants to have run out. We want bakers covered in flour all day. We want baristas roasting their beans like never before. We want you to go out and fall in love with the unique and wonderful independents your city has to offer that you may have forgotten about and most importantly, make you realise how much better it can be.

We are in the process of getting over 100 independents in Liverpool to give 10% off all day for all of you, not just cardholders. As much as we are humbled by the support of our cardholders, we want to give everybody the ability for one day to be rewarded for shopping local. That is not to say we don’t have any special announcements for our cardholders that day. Here is a poster of the 100 independents giving 10% off;

See you on July 4th.