Did The Pandemic Launch An Indie Revival?

The novel coronavirus pandemic led to many changes in consumer habits. A recent Fast Company article by Max Rhodes asserts that one of those changes is a greater customer penchant for shopping from independent retailers.

Lockdowns, social distancing and other elements of the pandemic, according to Mr. Rhodes: “re-emphasized what makes [independent retailers] so resilient: the power of human connection, the thrill of discovery, and the advantage of agility.” The pandemic requiring people to remain isolated from one another generated a nostalgia and longing for a “more intentional way of life,” with research from Forerunner anticipating an increased focus on simplicity in the coming years. The independent retail experience caters to these renewed values.

Consumer appreciation for mom-and-pop businesses and the sense of community they create could be observed well before the pandemic. Some enterprise-level players in the industry acknowledged the importance of small businesses, as seen in American Express’s 2010 launch of Small Business Saturday to promote shopping at independent businesses the day after the most major U.S. retail holiday, Black Friday.

At the same time, throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s, a few major big box retail chains in the U.S. developed a negative reputation for having the perceived opposite characteristics of what was associated with mom-and-pops: undifferentiated customer experiences, uninteresting or insufficient assortments and un-engaged, underpaid staff.

In at least one retail segment pre-pandemic, mom-and-pops were already seeing an influx of customer interest as the big chain in the same vertical flagged. Independent bookstores, as far back as 2015, began seeing increased sales and a groundswell of traffic, and the industry launched an Independent Bookstore Day holiday to promote and celebrate shopping bookstores outside of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Some indicators, however, point to the industry moving in the opposite direction of what Fast Company expects to see. A recent UBS report, pointing to 40,000 small retailers closing over the past decade while 17,000 chain stores opened, anticipates that trend continuing with major players in dollar store, discount, mass retail and home improvement continuing to expand their national footprints.