A warm welcome from Unchained

We’re starting a new business and we’re pretty excited about it. As with other ventures we’ve been involved in, we know there’s going to be excitement, bewilderment and pain in equal measure. Which sounded like the ideal ingredients for a blog.

So first let me tell you about our business.

For years we’ve been growing more and more disillusioned with bland high streets. It seems that every town in the UK looks like Leicester. Or Chiswick. Or Falkirk. The main shopping streets are filled with chain-stores selling the same stuff – and it’s hard for the independent shops to compete. And that’s a terrible shame for the nation because these smaller outlets are the places where you find the special, the unusual and the surprising. We need them.

So we’ve decided to unite these independents to give them a collective power to compete with the giants. And, in turn, make it easier for shoppers to find more exciting stuff.

We’re creating a website where you can search for the best independent shops according to location, shop type and character. We’ll give you all the information about the shop, show you where it is on a map and even give you directions. Best of all, you’ll be able to do all this from your mobile phone while you’re out and about as well as from the comfort of your own computer.

In the next few weeks we’ll be launching our London site. Then after that we’ll be adding other great shopping cities around the world.

We’re just starting out on this venture and we’d like you to join us. So please bookmark us or sign up for the RSS feed on the sidebar.