Last Monday we had an emergency meeting to discuss the implementation of some marketing measures to ensure we fully take advantage of the opportunities the introduction of Pay and Display will hopefully present to us.

The attendance was superb, the input totally positive and the meeting was particularly fruitful with a pretty comprehensive strategy being decided. The direction of the advertising will be decided in the next few weeks as soon as we have had all the quotes in and have a ballpark figure for the contribution required from each business.

Minutes for the June meeting can be found here.

The next meeting will take place again in the upstairs room of the Spread Eagle (thanks to Pauline and Dave) on Wednesday 29th July 2009 prospective Agenda Here.

Spar supermarket woes have had a dramatic effect on footfall in the village centre, just as we seem to be tackling the parking problem another problem rears its head. The Parish Council are attempting to address the problem and I have also sent a letter outlining our concerns and offering customer feedback and inviting Spar to join the Lymm Traders group. Letter here.

My contacts do tell me though that Spar are aware of the problems, it is being dealt with at director level and if my information is correct there are moves afoot to change from Spar to EuroSpar which is their version of a supermarket, good news if correct, this is all from a very knowledgeable source.

Not sure how this will be greeted, but we shall see.

I feel very positive about the way things are going, my thanks to all.

Philip

ps Parish council minutes for June Here.

Hi All,

It is imperative that ALL retailers come along to the Spread Eagle, upstairs room at 6pm, next Monday 22nd June 2009 to thrash out a battle plan to win back the lost Lymm shoppers.

As you should all know by now Pay and Display will go ‘live’ Monday July 6th 2009 we must use this initiative to promote Lymm as a convenient, attractive, friendly and vibrant shopping experience.

We need to introduce promotions, advertising, involve the media and come up with an unforgettable tag line.

To enable this to happen we will all need to ‘chip’ in to create a fighting fund, we are not talking fortunes, but in the short term this should easily pay for itself as long as we get it right FIRST time, that’s why we ALL need to be part of the ‘think tank’.

This was emailed to me from Hilary, food for thought -

Now you come up with some ideas!

Put your ideas on the forum please click here

It has been difficult getting everybody to work together, now is the time for Lymm Traders to actually take the initiative and push all our businesses forward as one. Everybody will benefit so everybody should become involved.

See you all next Monday.

Regards

Philip

My Blogs are like buses, nothing for a month then two come along at once!

The final Pay and Display update (hopefully!)

[quote]

Dear all

Hopefully final update!

The pay & display machines are being installed on Thursday 2nd July along with all the associated signage. I have arranged to have the machines switched on Friday 3rd (they will be bagged over) with the intention of going live Monday 6th July 2009.

The signage around the village is on order and will be amended around the same time to guide people to Davies Way, Henry Street and to Pepper Street pay & display.

[/quote]

This should be a firm date, do we need a meeting to discuss the details of publicity, advertising and general drum beating, please respond by email or here.

Phil

As we all know the supermarket demise appears to be affecting footfall within the village, to try to effect some change we have attempted to contact the Spar area manager, as of yet we haven't had any response.

However I have just been informed that Peter Dodding, Retail Manager, James Hall Company will be going to the next Parish Council meeting to speak about the Spar Shop in Lymm. That should be interesting.

May Parish Council Minutes Here 

I will try to blog more when my little office refurb is completed! .

Philip