Local commerce and economic recovery in Spain

Local commerce has gone through a very difficult period, initially due to the opening of large shopping centres and later to the rise of online shopping. This has forced many neighbourhood shops to close.

The pandemic seemed like it was going to deal them the final blow, but these businesses knew how to adapt to the situation and, in fact, the vast majority of them managed to increase their customer base thanks to home delivery or online sales.

The evolution of small businesses

For many years, small businesses were dominant in our cities, energising neighbourhoods, occupying every retail space and offering a wide variety of services.

This was the case until the early 1980s, when shopping centres as we know them today began to arrive in Spain. The first to open was La Vaguada, in the city of Madrid, back in 1983.

From that year onwards, and very gradually, a decline began that culminated in the popularisation of online shopping.

Shopping centres vs. local businesses

One of the hardest blows local commerce received came from shopping centres, places people could drive to and buy all kinds of items, from chicken to trainers or a television.

In these establishments, you could find everything at prices that were usually lower than those of small businesses, and they also offered very long opening hours, with many open seven days a week for at least twelve hours a day.

As if that were not enough, they became leisure centres, and that was when shopping in the city became shopping at the mall, leaving the streets empty of shoppers.

Neighbourhood shops could do little about this, so most of them closed forever, especially when their owners retired.

The resurgence of the neighbourhood shop

Although the situation was not very promising, for several years there has been a citizens' movement to revive neighbourhood shops, leading many people to shop there again.

Furthermore, the traditional shopping centre model has proven to be exhausted, and many are even closing around the world, including in our country. In fact, some in cities such as Madrid and La Coruña have ceased operating.

The pandemic has also helped local commerce resurface, as many people suddenly could not travel further afield and discovered the excellent service they provide, how they care about their customers and their attractive prices.

Many of them have become Punto Pack, acting as a link between the courier company and the end customer, which has allowed many people who go there to collect their online purchases to discover them.

InPost and support for local commerce in Spain

At InPost, we specialise in deliveries to collection points, made through more than 4,500 Punto Pack | Locker locations in our country.

Punto Pack locations are found in small neighbourhood businesses such as copy shops, stationery shops, florists, newsagents, etc., where we can collect our online purchases or any parcel sent to us.

They were created to solve the delivery problem, as there are many occasions when deliveries cannot be made because the recipient and courier do not coincide due to schedules, work, etc.

This way, everyone wins and neighbourhood shops gain a double benefit that helps them stay open.

How does InPost help shops?

Shops that become Punto Pack locations receive compensation for each parcel they handle, so if they manage to deliver many, they earn income at the end of the month that always comes in handy.

This is a benefit worth considering, but what mainly makes these shops interested in becoming Punto Pack locations is that it gets people who would never otherwise have visited the shop to come regularly to collect their deliveries.

For small businesses, having people coming in and out of the shop means sales, so many of those people eventually end up buying and becoming customers, making the most of their visits to purchase some products.

It is true that not everyone will buy, but if even a small percentage do, these shops notice it greatly in their accounts, as they do not need a massive customer base to survive, unlike shopping centres.