Independent retailers have more competition for people's attention than ever.
Your customers can shop online, travel out of town, buy from national chains or choose from countless alternatives without ever walking past your shop.
There are plenty of things affecting Eastbourne retailers that neither you nor we can control.
What we can do is help you make the strongest possible case for why somebody should choose you.
Because being independent isn't, by itself, a reason somebody should shop with you.
What's much more interesting is what makes your business worth going out of their way to visit.
Your customers can shop online, travel out of town, buy from national chains or choose from countless alternatives without ever walking past your shop.
There are plenty of things affecting Eastbourne retailers that neither you nor we can control.
What we can do is help you make the strongest possible case for why somebody should choose you.
Because being independent isn't, by itself, a reason somebody should shop with you.
What's much more interesting is what makes your business worth going out of their way to visit.
One of the questions we like asking independent retailers is deceptively simple:
Why should somebody deliberately visit you?
Perhaps you stock something difficult to find elsewhere. You have exceptional knowledge about what you sell. Your customers rave about the service. You've created an experience people love. You support local charities, teams or community initiatives. Or perhaps there's a story behind the business that most people simply don't know.
Those are the things we want to uncover.
Our job isn't merely to tell people there's another shop in Eastbourne.
We want to help give them a reason to walk through your door.
Little Chelsea Health Store is a good example.
It would be easy to describe them simply in terms of the health products and supplements they stock.
But that misses an important part of the experience.
When somebody visits looking for a particular type of product, the team can talk to them about what they're trying to achieve, explain the different options available and share their detailed knowledge of the products they sell.
They're not presenting themselves as medical practitioners or pharmacists. It's knowledgeable retail service, developed through experience with their products and conversations with customers.
That's difficult to communicate through a photograph of a shopfront or a list of products.
It's exactly the sort of difference we want to help independent retailers make more visible.
Reviews can be particularly powerful for independent retailers because your customers can explain why they chose you, what happened when they visited and why they would return.
We've seen this when helping businesses establish themselves in a market where customers already have their favourites.
The Rosy Lee was relatively new when we started working together and faced plenty of established competition. Part of the objective was to help them carve out a reputation of their own.
Their customers subsequently became an important part of telling that story.
The principle is equally relevant to retail.
If you want somebody to change an established shopping habit and try somewhere different, hearing enthusiastic experiences from other local people can give them another reason to see what they've been missing.
Supporting local businesses has been part of thebestof Eastbourne from the beginning.
But we don't believe somebody should choose a business simply because it's independent.
Through our Buy Local campaign, we want to make it easier to understand why Eastbourne's independent businesses are genuinely worth supporting.
That includes what they sell, but it can also include the knowledge behind the counter, the people they employ, the local causes they support, their involvement in Eastbourne and the contribution they make simply by choosing to build their business here.
We want to help tell those stories.
Because the stronger the reason to care about an independent business, the stronger the case for choosing it.
We're also bringing those businesses together rather than expecting every retailer to fight for attention alone.
Our Shopping, Gift Ideas and Occasions guides help people browse different parts of Eastbourne's local retail offer, while an individual Business Guide presence gives us room to concentrate on what specifically makes your business worth visiting.
Collectively, our Buy Local campaign gives us an opportunity to show people just how much Eastbourne has to offer.
That's useful for local residents, but also for people visiting Eastbourne who don't already know which independent businesses are here or what they might find beyond the places they already recognise.
Retail also gives us something particularly useful to work with: immediacy.
An interesting new product, limited availability, a special event or a genuinely compelling offer can give somebody a reason to look at your business now rather than simply remembering the name for another day.
Instead of every independent retailer having to publish an offer and repeatedly fight for attention across multiple social media groups, thebestof provides a central place for local business offers.
That means we can promote individual opportunities while also giving people a reason to look through offers from other Eastbourne businesses.
Someone may arrive because one particular offer catches their attention and find another local business they didn't previously know existed.
Running a shop is very different from running many other types of business.
You're often physically tied to the premises during the working day. Attending networking meetings may not interest you, or simply may not be practical.
That's fine.
You don't need to become a regular networking attendee to work with thebestof Eastbourne.
You can still become part of our wider business community, make connections online and have access to businesses that could be useful to you, while also becoming visible to fellow members who are themselves potential customers.
Sometimes useful connections can be surprisingly close.
Years ago, I spoke to a local café that wanted branded clothing for the business. I said I'd keep an eye out for somebody who could help.
I walked out of their premises and into the neighbouring shop, only to discover that one of the products they offered was custom-printed T-shirts.
Two businesses next door to one another had a potential customer and supplier relationship without knowing it.
It's one of the reasons I've always believed there is value in helping good local businesses become more aware of each other.
The more worthwhile independent businesses we can bring together, the more useful Buy Local can become.
Our ambition is to build an increasingly useful online showcase of Eastbourne's independent retail offer, supported by businesses giving people genuine reasons to take notice.
Over time, having more quality retailers contributing products, stories, expertise and worthwhile offers also creates opportunities for stronger collective promotion.
Rather than every retailer having to generate attention entirely by themselves, a collection of interesting local businesses gives us something bigger to promote.
Many hands really can make light work.
But it starts with individual businesses that are worth talking about.
We're probably not the right marketing partner for a retailer whose entire proposition is:
"We've got a shop. Send us more customers."
Getting somebody through the door is only part of the job.
We work best with independent retailers that give us something worth amplifying.
That might be outstanding customer reviews, specialist knowledge, an unusual range, a compelling offer, involvement in the local community or simply a very clear reason why somebody should make your business one of their local favourites.
You don't need to be brilliant at marketing.
You do need to care about giving people a reason to choose you.
If that sounds like your business, we'd rather start by understanding what you're trying to achieve.
For independent retailers we believe are a good fit, we can build your presence on thebestof Eastbourne and bring together compatible existing reviews to start showing what makes your business different.
Then we'll look at what makes most sense for your particular business.
For one retailer, that could be an offer that gives people an immediate reason to visit. For another, an expert article may be a better way of demonstrating specialist knowledge. For another, an event could provide the strongest opportunity.
There isn't a standard answer because independent retailers aren't standard businesses.
The starting point is finding your reason to be visited and working out how we can help more people understand it.
Not sure what your business needs next? That's exactly the kind of conversation we can have.
Want to talk it through? Send me a WhatsApp or email and tell me what you'd most like your independent business to become better known for.
