Gloucester Road Traders

Any posters being printed? I'll pop one in my shop window

Oooohhh it's open! I wondered when they'd be opening the doors.

If anyone nearby to them pops in there, can they let them know about this forum so if they want to join they can?

Thanks James!

Police have got the situation in hand thankfully. They've been interviewing a number of local traders and building up a case, but apparently I'm their main witness after the issues I've had. He's had me up against a wall twice (not touching, just trapping me) and he has a history of exposing himself and 'playing' with himself in public, so the police think it will help build up a case and get something done. Especially as he'd started approaching some of the kids from Colston Girls School.

He's being held until Monday and he's being analysed by professionals to decide if it's a mental issue or just alcohol. He's been analysed before, and the analysis changes. If they find it's just alcohol related he'll go to court. Unfortunately this apparently means I'll have to go to court too which is an arse as it means shutting the shop.

Anyway, the lovely community officer/liason officer (or whatever his title is) popped in yesterday with a personal alarm for me to carry, and has had a word with one of the other worrying 'characters' and banned him from the shop. Dominic from Do Lii's a couple of doors down has given me his number and said if I have any problems, call or text and he'll run over.

All's well again but I still can't believe someone actually urinated in my shop! We all have issues with the odd few members of the public, but you expect that. Urination you don't! Yuck.

I think this is one way that this forum could benefit all of the traders if they all got on board. Being able to chat about local issues like this and making others aware of issues they might not have experienced yet, or people they need to watch out for might help.

Hi Bill,

As it happens the ****(insert suitable expletive here) was being arrested outside when I opened my shop this morning. Spoke to the officer there and he sent down the community officer to me for a chat. He's taken a statement and we had a long chat about the issues I've had with him. The Officer thinks he's started to recognise me as he's been cornering me on the street as well as coming into the shop so they're going to do what they can.

He's been a problem to several traders, and a few of the others are also giving statements, but as you say, being a female on my own I've become a little bit of a target. The other 'characters' I have problems with are known by the police apart from one, who's causing them a bit of concern after what I explained had happened here last week, so they're keeping an eye out for him so they can see if he's doing anything else.

He's suggested that things have escalated because I was nice to some of these 'characters' at first (I was polite, I'm a polite girl, what else would I do!). You just don't expect such things to happen when you first open a business. But I got some very good advice which really helped.

My fiance is coming straight down after work to install security cameras as this has just shown we really need to get that sorted asap.

Annoyingly my friends who live locally are all at work in my opening hours, but I'm going to have a chat with Dom later in the cafe a few doors down and see if I can call on him if I need to. I have a **** alarm we thought we'd use so if he can hear it he knows to pop in and check on me. He's a lovely guy so I'm sure he would. I totally agree with it needing a firm man. I'm a 5'2" petite girl and I don't look like the sort of person who can handle herself. I'm no mad feminist - there are situations when women aren't equal to men, and this is one of them.

It does make me concerned though about employing people in the future. If I employed a girl and the same kind of thing happened, would they be able to take me to some kind of tribunal for letting them work alone with such goings on? I haven't got into looking up any legalities of employees and employee safety yet, no need until I'm in that position, but it's got me thinking.
 

No but I'll definitely take a look at it on 4OD.

You can see it here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-cctv-traffic-wardens-caught-on-camera/4od#3614316

He appears at about 19 mins through, but Gloucester Road features heavily.

Have been watching it on and off today, it appears to be cumulative.

Nice to see this forum helping in the way that it should

Hi Julia,

You can 'buy' likes, which makes your page look popular and so more people follow, but I never think it's worth it. At the end of the day, you want to be speaking to people who might come by and buy something.

There are loads of online tips from 'marketing experts' on how to get more likes. Supposedly as long as you keep posting good quality, relevant  content that people will 'share' they should build naturally, but running competitions, having links to your profiles across your website etc help too. Giving people an incentive to like your page is a good way, or why else would they bother? Competitions etc are a great way to go, but time consuming. They also say that being personal is the way to go. Be 'Julia from Make' instead of just MAKE, but I don't do that as I feel it'll be a different set of followers, and what I want is people who are interested in my business, not me.

I've found that the facebook inbuilt advertising is pretty good for increasing likes, and I have had customers coming in as a result. as they've 'liked' my page from the adverts, then responded to posts on what I have new in stock and bought them.

With twitter, just posting interesting things and retweeting builds it up pretty well. If we all retweet each other a bit we should be able to grow the following between us. Again with twitter, you can buy followers, but I feel it;s pointless - why speak to a deaf crowd?

I think Sarah (Room 212) is heading up a bit of a Gloucester Road marketing team, and with that will get going on the social media channels already set up for Gloucester Road. If that gets sorted, it could be used to promote the social media accounts of all of the traders on Gloucester Road, tweeting about everyone's events, special offers etc. And Gloucester Road itself has a good fanbase and is renowned enough to get a good following as long as it's active enough to be worth following

Overall, I think the number of followers you have shouldn't matter as long as they're good quality followers who might respond to you and [purchase down the line.

Hope that helps a little bit! Not the most useful answer, but hopefully it'll help in some way.