Clicks and Mortar Opens in Cardiff Featuring Small Businesses From Across Wales and the UK

Clicks and Mortar is a year-long pilot programme to open 10 pop-up shops across to the UK, enabling more than 100 small online businesses to experience selling on the high street for the first time. Amazon has commissioned independent research to assess the impact of the pilot, which will be submitted to the Government in 2020 following calls for new ideas to help inform the Future High Streets strategy.

The Clicks and Mortar shop will feature a number of Welsh businesses such as Cardiff-based Dust and Things and Bear Hug Sports from Caerphilly. The featured brands have all built successful online businesses and now want to explore physical retail. As well as meeting customers and selling on the high street for the first time, the small businesses will be able to access on-site business advisers to help them scale, both online and in physical retail.

“As well as providing these small online businesses with a physical space to trade for the first time, in Cardiff we’ll have advisers from the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales (ICAEW) on hand to offer free advice around cash flow and productivity, while Business Wales will be on hand to help them scale, both offline and online,” said Emma Jones, founder of Enterprise Nation. “We feel it’s important to ensure our stores benefit not just the small firms and their customers, but also the wider local economy – that’s why we have partnered with the Welsh Government to promote local food and drink producers.”

“Amazon has been a growth engine for millions of small businesses around the world, and we’re thrilled to work with Enterprise Nation to help Welsh brands scale their businesses, both in-store and online,” said Doug Gurr, UK Country Manager, Amazon. “From giving up-and-coming online businesses the chance to experience physical retail for the first time, to funding the training of full-time apprenticeships and helping to increase SME exports, Amazon is committed to supporting the growth of small businesses in Wales – helping them boost the economy and create jobs.”

Clicks and Mortar is a collaboration between Amazon, Enterprise Nation, Square and Direct Line for Business, and the Cardiff store is in partnership with shopping centre group Intu and LandSec.

“We are thrilled that St David’s has been chosen as the second location in the UK to host the Clicks and Mortar pop-up shop,” said James Waugh, General Manager of St David’s Cardiff. “We are very proud of our partnerships with local Welsh businesses who have called St David’s home throughout our ten years, and we know that bringing fantastic local brands to life in a physical space will be very popular with our shoppers. We can’t wait to welcome the store to the centre.”

Since opening its stores to smaller, independent sellers nearly 20 years ago, Amazon has been a growth engine for millions of small businesses around the world. In 2000, 3 per cent of physical gross merchandise sales on Amazon came from third-party businesses. By 2018 this increased to 58 per cent, following years of heavy investment in technology, infrastructure and selling tools to help them grow their business. Tens of thousands UK-based small businesses now sell their products on Amazon’s global sites, helping to support more than 80,000 UK jobs and achieving £2.5bn in export sales in 2018 alone.

Local businesses that wish to apply to take part in Clicks and Mortar can find out more information here.