Londis

Everyone knows what a Londis shop does… they sell groceries and alcohol along with soft drinks and confection. But perhaps not everyone knows that they are a franchise like Spar and the Life Style convenience stores, and so they are owned as independent businesses, and are not to be confused with supermarket chains. The essential and important difference is that supermarkets make their profits for the organisation, whereas shops like Londis are profitable for the individual owners.
It is essential for people who live in places like Rhondda to offer their support to the independents. Being an area affected by high unemployment, buying things at Londis can actually help protect the local economy. Not only can Londis often save the customer money, but they also stock items that the larger supermarkets don’t carry.
I have found that I can often buy things cheaper here than I can at the supermarket. Believing that Supermarkets sell things cheaper is a fallacy that we have all bought into in one way or another, but it’s simply not the case in many instances! There’s no denying that the massive supermarket chains indulged in a price war to kill off their smaller competitors, but when they felt that they had done as much damage as possible, they allowed their prices to steadily rise, allowing them to make more profit per customer. Perhaps what they didn’t reckon with is that shops like Spar and Londis were going to preserve a lot more independently owned convenience stores than they thought. Not only is this competition essential to keep the larger stores in line, but it also means that local convenience stores have access to larger bulk buying discounts, thus often making them more able to undercut the big boys!
Because Londis shops are all franchises, they can if they want, participate in national promotions, and offer discounted items for a period of three weeks. Not every Londis shop is the same. Being independently owned means that the proprietor of each shop can buy in stock that is culturally relevant to the local area in which they trade. This has to be seen as a distinct advantage Londis has over its larger rivals, but the main benefit to the local communities which they serve is that when locals shop at Londis they are making an investment in the future!
A friend told me an interesting statistic the other day… apparently 80% of the money spent at supermarkets leaves the local economy whereas 80% of the money spent at independent stores remains within circulation locally, which is great if it’s true! If high percentages of money leave a localised area, then impoverishment will eventually ensue. So, to retain 80% of the money you spend within the area in which you live means the opposite!