Independent retailers are under growing pressure as cost-conscious consumers weigh up where to spend, online competitors compete on price, and a single poor experience can discourage customers from returning.
With discretionary spending often shifting towards travel, hospitality and leisure during summer, high-street businesses have even less room for operational mistakes that damage satisfaction or footfall.
By introducing affordable AI products, this can help smaller retailers turn customer feedback into practical insights, giving managers access to analysis that once required a dedicated data team.
Mika Kupila, Head of Product Management at HappyOrNot, told CX Today that independent retailers must use customer feedback and data more effectively as they compete for increasingly selective shoppers.
"As independents battle with the convenience of online shopping and the budgets of larger retailers, listening to feedback and using every tool at their disposal is now more important than ever," he said.
"If you cannot see what is pushing people away, you cannot fix it - and there is very little margin for getting that wrong right now.”
The Summer Spend Squeeze
Amid worldwide cost cutting and higher inflation, independent retailers are entering the summer months under more pressure from cautious consumer spending, rising operating costs, and competition from larger chains and online stores.
Because of this, consumers are presented with more shopping options as online retailers typically compete on price and convenience.
“With online retailers often able to offer consumers a more cost-effective deal, creating the right environment for shoppers has become even more important,” notes Kupila.
For independent stores, this leaves less room for frustration, requiring them to quickly identify the root of dissatisfaction before it creates a permanent impression.
“Increasingly, people are thinking harder about where they spend, and are far quicker to write off a store or brand after an experience fails to meet their expectations,” he highlighted.
As a result, current footfall and spending patterns reveal that retailers cannot assume that people visiting town centers will automatically spend in independent stores.
Summer consumer activity can often shift toward leisure activities abroad, unlike the Christmas trading period when seasonal shopping can provide a significant boost to retail demand,
In fact, ONS revealed that UK consumers made 34.8 million overseas visits between July and September 2024, spending £17.1BN in total, suggesting that summer can leave high-street stores competing for a smaller share of discretionary spending.
Kupila states:
