Make a special effort to buy at least one item from a local independent retailer on Monday 4th July.
That's one of the key messages behind the Independents' Day campaign, organised by Skillsmart Retail and the National Skills Academy for Retail.
They want people across Britain to celebrate the diversity on offer from their local shops and they're being supported by Mary Portas. A nationally recognised retailed guru, the government recently asked her to take on the challenge of bringing life back to the UK's High Streets.
The Independents' Day initiative wants to remind people that if we don't keep using our local shops, we'll lose them. Many of us have complained for years that huge supermarkets are killing town centre retailers and the recent recession has seen a string of shops, including a number of regional and national chains, go out of business.
If you run a local retail business, or simply want to support the Independents' Day campaign, you can download posters from their website. You could also get some free publicity by holding a special event and submitting a press release to your local newspaper.
If you're a Dorset business and you plan to celebrate Independents' Day in some way, please let us know here at Bizoh. We'd love to publish stories about local shops and if you can supply photographs, that's even better.
