Independents’ Day on last Thursday’s July 4 was celebrated in style by 30 independent retailers, courtesy of Cherry Orchard Publishing, who created an extravaganza of ‘Cards, Canapés and Champers’ at its design studio in idyllic rural Kent, situated five miles from Canterbury.
“Independent retailers have always been at the heart of what we do. We thought Independent’s Day was the ideal date to show how much we appreciate their loyalty to Cherry Orchard,” said the publisher’s managing director and owner Jackie Collins. “We recognise what a challenging time many independents are having at present and certainly do not take their loyalty to Cherry Orchard for granted,” she added.
The event, which followed seamlessly from the publisher’s sales conference, had some extra ‘Razzle Dazzle’ for Paul Winder, co-owner of Ideas of Hythe in Kent. The indie, who joined the Independent’s Day celebrations was presented with £250 of holiday vouchers as the lucky winner of Cherry Orchard’s Razzle Dazzle prize draw, which took place on the publisher’s stand at PG Live last month.
With Ideas in Hythe, Kent a long-standing customer and supporter of Cherry Orchard, Jackie said she could not be happier that the holiday vouchers went to such a deserving recipient.
In fact all retailers attending were ‘winners’ as they each went home with a goodie bag with £200 worth of product.
The event was timed to coincide with the Independents’ Day UK, a not-for-profit campaign that exists to support and promote independent retail businesses across the UK all year round, but with an annual focus on July 4, Independents’ Day itself. The annual campaign called on shoppers to spend just £5 in an indie store as the organisers’ calculations suggest that if every adult spent just a fiver a week, it would generate around £13.5 billion a year worth of additional revenue for small businesses in the retail sector.
Top: Cherry Orchard’s sales conference morphed into an Independent’s Day celebration to thank the publisher’s indie customers.
