Britain’s got a brand new reward card offering fabulous discounts and special offers when you shop at local owner-run stores and cafes.
It is a chilly morning towards the end of November, and on a narrow street in WC1 a quiet revolution is happening. On this quiet Bloomsbury back street Londoners are talking to each other.
It is happening in the gift shop, where Toni is planning drinks with a couple of her customers. Up the street, the barber turns down the jazz to hear the love-life traumas of his latest customer. Julia at the bookshop is picking out reading for some local children and, at the deli, a parcel has been delivered for a veg-box subscriber. Meanwhile, the men from the pub greet the lady from the dairy, as a girl pops in to leave a set of keys for her mum. The café owner, Fred, has been up since five. “Do you know what London looks like at 5am?” he demands, expansively. “Miserable. I love it!”
Over a complicated coffee at Marc Kennard’s delicatessen, John Bird is trying to explain why these unassuming shopkeepers are heralds of a brave new dawn. As Kennard skilfully prepares him a double decaff Americano with cold milk on the side and two plain croissants, they patiently explain why the way forward for Britain’s independent shops is something called Wedge.
Together with his daughter, Diana, Bird, the Big Issue founder, believes that the smallholders in Lambs Conduit Street have hit on something special. None is part of a chain. They do not have expensive marketing men. They don’t provide a free multistorey car park or ask customers to drive miles out of town to shop there. They have never conducted a scientific survey of how to make people spend more money and their business plans barely stretch beyond the end of the road. John and Diana Bird believe that this is worth saving. And they think a supermarket-style loyalty card is the way to do it.
Wedge is a loyalty card with a difference. For a start, supermarkets need not apply. As the scheme is slowly rolled out across the country, Wedge’s founders will not accept any shop that comprises more than 10 branches, but so far its biggest member has two. That member is Foyles bookshop, the family concern in central London that still holds its own alongside giants such as Waterstone’s.
The Wedge Card is a simple proposition. It will be sold to customers for £20. From tomorrow, it can be bought in participating shops, from local charities or from the website, www.wedgecard.co. uk. The seller keeps £5 and £5 goes to charity. The remaining £10 goes into the Wedge company, a for-profit business that seeks to build “social enterprise”. For Wedge cards bought online, 50 per cent will go to charity. For traders, it is hoped there will be new customers looking for the kind of discounts they can get on Nectar cards. Only, with Wedge, the discounts and offers will be far, far more creative. And sometimes, burlesque dancers will be involved. For now, you will get 5 per cent at Albion Wine, 10 per cent at Green Baby and up to 15 per cent at The Lamb Bookshop - plus a range of reductions at other businesses, including both Tate galleries.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is a Wedge Card partner. It represents charities from giants to local minnows. Its job is to make it easy for any charity to sign up. “The Wedge Card hits all the right buttons,” says NCVO director of enterprise, Richard Williams. “It combines social justice, sustainability, diversity and economics. It encourages sustainable development and localism and it will entice more, new people into charitable giving. I come from the environmental sector, and I think this is a great way of being more environmentally aware. Plus it’s a poke in the eye for some of the big stores that are making everything the same.”
In theory, the businesses in any given street will choose a local charity to receive 5 per cent of the card’s revenue. But as more and more customers sign up, cardholders will be able to use the website to send the money to any charity they choose.
But it’s not only about money - or charity. “It’s about having loyalty to your community and therefore to y