Local businesses need our support more than ever, but can shopping locally ever be as cost effective and convenient as buying online? Piper Terrett decided to do her Christmas shopping at local stores to find out.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit our high streets hard, leaving many local businesses struggling to survive.
At Christmas, it is tempting to buy from the online retail giants. Personally, I hate Christmas shopping in stores and queuing and that was before we had to wear a mask and keep two metres apart.
But this year I want to support my local businesses and spend in my community.
So, I’ve decided to do as much of my shopping in my local area as possible. But, how easy is it and how affordable compared to buying online?
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Where are all the local toy stores?
I have a five-year-old and one of the difficulties was finding anywhere independent locally that actually sells toys.
Most high street toy shops packed up long ago, presumably when they found it too difficult to compete with Amazon and other online retailers.
Besides Smyths Toys near us in Harlow, which has replaced the Toys R Us store, the closest I could get to an independent store was our garden centre, which has a large toy section.
While I often visit with my five-year-old, I admit I usually price check items then head online to see if I can get them for less.
I needed a present for my cousin’s little boy who loves dinosaurs, and we were spoilt for choice there with dinosaur-related items.
I went for a Shrinkles dinosaur-themed crafting pack (£5.99) and a packet of plastic Dino World toys (£1.50).
Expecting the items to be cheaper online, I was surprised to find the Shrinkles were actually 1p dearer and the same Dino World toys were £4 (at the time of writing), which was more than twice the price from an online toy store. On top of that, delivery cost £3.49.
Although I had to post the items from the garden centre to my nephew, this cost me less at £2.14.
There was also something more personal – albeit more time-consuming - about being able to wrap the presents with my son and add a card in with the package.
I opted for printing out the postage online, as when I visited our local Post Office in our Co-op, I found it was shut because the postman was self-isolating.
Local total (including postage): £9.63, online: £13.49
Overall saving: £3.86
Scooting off with a local bargain
Recently I’d also managed to nab a bargain in the sales at the same garden centre on a scooter, complete with motion-activated blue lights, for my son for £14.99.
This was marked down from £24.99 and was lower than the online price of £28 (at the time of writing).
Not bad! At least with this present I wouldn’t have to cover the cost of posting it as this probably would have ate up some of the savings.
Local total (including postage): £14.99, online: £28
Overall saving: £13.01
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Locally sourced gift packs
For the older female members of the family, I was struggling to think of anything until I hit upon the idea of putting together my own little Christmas gift packs.
I ordered some large chiffon bags (50p each) online. Then I filled these with items such as lip balms and bath bombs produced by Hertfordshire-based beauty brands (both £4), face-masks made locally and sold in a nearby refill shop (£5), a sample of three teabags made by a local tea supplier (90p) and chocolates (£2), also from the refill shop.
The self-assembled gift packs cost a pretty reasonable £16.40 (including the 50p chiffon bag), even with paying a little extra for the locally made facemasks.
Most of the gift packs I found online were around the £20 mark – one offered just three bath bombs for £18.
But second-class UK postage came in at £3.10, bringing them more in line with the online bath bomb pack, which offered free delivery.
Local total (including postage: £19.50, online: £20
Overall saving: 50p
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Buying books locally
My mother asked for books for her birthday, which is near Christmas.
I am surprised that we still have two independent bookshops near us as it can be difficult for them to compete with the likes of Amazon, and until recently, I’d rarely visited them before.
However, when I did, I was surprised to find to find the prices pretty competitive – especially for young children’s picture books where I was able to snap up two for the price of one.
I bought This Is Going to Hurt for £6.99 and Twas The Night Shift Before Christmas for £9.99 (both by Adam Kay) for myself for Christmas and The Grinch for £6.99 for my son.
I was able to order via Messenger and pay by BACS and PayPal, but still had to visit the store to pick them up.
Online, however, the two Adam Kay books were both £4.50, down from £9.99, and The Grinch was just £4 with free delivery, so I could have saved nearly £14.
Of course, the difficulty is that books are also expensive to post because they are heavy. My parcel to my mum cost £2.95 to post, not including packaging.
Local total (including postage): £26.92, online £13, so I ended up spending £13.92 more when I shopped locally instead of online.
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Shopping local: is it worth it?
Altogether, doing my Christmas present shopping locally cost me £71.04 versus the £74.49 I would have spent on the same items online, so I actually saved £3.45.
And, if I’d avoided buying books for Christmas and purchased lighter items, I could probably have saved more.
However, I may have spent the money saved on petrol driving to local shops and it also was more time consuming than buying online.
But it’s interesting to see that this widespread belief many of us may have that purchasing products online is cheaper isn’t necessarily always true and that many local shops are doing what they can to compete with internet shopping giants.
Please note the online prices were correct at the time of writing and may have changed.