Tartan Border

It's really tough being an independent business in the UK. We watch huge corporations with massive marketing budgets gobble up customers and then paying almost zero tax. This morning for example, we went into a beautiful coffee shop and had amazing coffee and food, but the place was really quiet. Walked past two famous chain coffee shops, with poor food and average coffee, and they were rammed. What chance do us small indies have? We can't undercut the big boys, we can't match their marketing spend. So we do what we can, we offer personal service, good quality and we chip away as best we can. This takes time, sadly time is also our enemy as we have to pay ourselves, pay our staff and pay the bills to simply exist. A massive thank you to all who choose to buy a bike or use us for a service, to those who choose an independent coffee shop or clothes shop or deli etc etc. Let's not accept homogeneous shopping and leisure experiences. Choose alternatives. When you do you're helping individuals to eat and pay bills rather than lining the pockets of people who don't even care about the products they sell, they simply want returns on investments. The bigger independents like us get the more people we employ, the more tax we pay and the more we contribute to society, your society. We work incredibly hard to simply be noticed. So please spend a few minutes thinking about choosing an independent brand above the ones who have the massive advantages over us. Sorry for the long ramble but it needs to be said.