What with supermarkets offering easy shopping with online orders and Deliveroo drivers whizzing around everywhere you might buy the oft-spun narrative of the decline of the local shop.
But in fact the opposite is true: the corner shop is, in fact thriving.....
NB I do my bit, although mainly this consists in purchasing Wheat Crunchies and Wispa Bites, classy!
The stats...
In 2020, Britain had 47,079 corner shops; today, just five years on, it has 50,486. That's an impressive 8% ish increase over those five years.
What's more, 71% of them are independent, not some Tesco Metro or Sainsbury's Local clone. Proper old-school independents, the sort where the owner knows who drinks which energy drink and which dodgy school kids are going to lift!
Far from being steamrolled by supermarkets, corner shops have done what big chains can't: adapt to the quirks of their tiny patches of Britain.
Through knowing their customers, corner shops are providing a more niche service that supermarkets can't match - through stocking up on ethnic treats or allowing people credit for a few days, for example.
According to the Association of Convenience Stores, corner shops remain a £45bn sector driven by hyperlocal demand, says the ACS Local Shop Report 2024. And unlike supermarkets, they aren't trying to optimise profit per square meter - they're trying to remain embedded within a community.
The New Corner Shop Class
For decades, the backbone of Britain's convenience sector was south Asian families, who fought the supermarket boom and kept the tradition alive. That legacy is still there but the picture has changed: 66% of owners are now white British or from other ethnic groups.
But a new wave of young entrepreneurs is muscling in too. To them, the local shop isn't a relic, but a viable business model. Low barriers to entry, high community visibility, and the fact that people increasingly want "something nearby" rather than "something cheap" makes it attractive.
Diversification is also helping: hot food counters, parcel drop-off points, refill stations, niche imports, craft beers, and so on. They're basically everything the high street claims it wants to be: flexible, community-centred, and surprisingly modern.
Final Thoughts
It would seem that the good old corner shop is turning into a kind of hybrid mini-market, community hub, survivalist business model, and entrepreneurial playground.
In the age of algorithmic retail and faceless supermarkets, the biggest advantage of the local shop is simple: it still feels human, and that's maybe something the supermarkets simply cannot compete with!