Page 4 - Jigsaw October 2018

Talk of the High Street
As Jollys Toys celebrates its 5th birthday Charlotte Croser thinks the High Street is just the place for Christmas shopping
There’s a lot of talk about how the rise of internet shopping and smart out of town shopping centres are causing big changes on our High Streets. How will small High Streets like ours in Thrapston survive?
Personal service and
offering something a bit
different are top of the list,
thinks Charlotte from Jollys
Toys.
Thrapston might not have
as many shops as it did
in the days when there
were dozens of shops,
a department store, and
several markets a week. But you can still buy a lot of items you need here – more than you might expect.
So before you head off to Rushden Lakes, Corby, or Peterborough, and before you reach for your tablet and go online, why not think whether what you need might be right here in Thrapston? Why not even go as far as trying to do as much Christmas shopping as you can this year on Thrapston High Street?
You’ll get something that you won’t find online or in the big shopping centres and that’s friendly, welcoming shopkeepers who know your name and ask you how you are today. Shopkeepers who remember that your youngest starts school soon, or how you take your coffee; they’ll know you like a certain product and let you know when it’s back in stock, or recommend something to you knowing it’ll suit that grandchild you look after every Wednesday.
Many of Thrapston’s shops sell items
a little out of the ordinary, and they won’t necessarily cost you any more than they will
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elsewhere. You won’t have to pay any or much petrol money for a start, and there are no delivery charges. Whether you live in Islip, Denford or Thrapston, it saves you time to use your community High Street.
My business, Jollys Toys, is a great example of small, community high street shopping at its best. Ok so I’m biased, but I’ve worked in retail since my first job at 16 and with all the changes I have seen on High Streets throughout the past 25 years, one thing remains the same – offering a service
which people are delighted by, which goes the extra mile and which people remember and want to return for is still something shoppers today want. That’s easier for us small businesses to offer than large stores, and even harder for online stores.
Loyalty to a local business that loves you back feels good.
At Jollys we offer everyone a warm welcome and the chance to browse, or we’ll get straight down to finding you that ideal gift if you need us to. I regularly have customers who walk in and say ‘Hi Charlotte! This week it’s a 5-year-old girl I need something for, and we’re on our way to the party’. Within 5 minutes we have found something perfect (avoiding anything that anyone else has bought for the same local child thanks to my encyclopaedic memory), then I’ve wrapped it and it’s ready with a handwritten card to go to the party.
I approach customer service with oodles of empathy – I think how I would like to
be treated and also imagine I am the gift