'We can't afford to take part in Black Friday', say some independent Stamford businesses
Almost 60% of people in the UK were interested in spending on Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year
The biggest retail event of the year is here, as thousands of Brits flock to the high-street to bag some Black Friday deals - but some of Stamford's businesses won't be taking part.
With Black Friday weekend also being the last payday before Christmas for many, plenty of people will be hoping to take advantage of discounts, deals and reduced prices.
But some independent businesses in Stamford simply can't afford to cut prices, during the ongoing cost of living and energy crisis.
Alan Mowat runs an interior design store named H-Works, he told us:
'We're not doing a great deal on Black Friday. Most of our stuff is relatively exclusive anyway and, frankly, cutting margins to be level with some of the Black Friday pricing is just not economic for us at the moment.'
Molly, from Murano Silver jewellery store, said:
'We've not really been doing any reductions; we're having an event day on Saturday where there will be 10% off but we haven't managed to, or would want to, do the 45% off that you see in some places because we just can't afford to do it.'
'We're lucky in Stamford because it's quite a well-supported town with lots of independents and we do find that we get quite a lot of Christmas shoppers at this time of year.'
In the Government's Autumn Budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt outlined that a package worth £13bn would help support business rates payers in England, and that the businesses rates multiplier would be frozen for another year to protect businesses from rising inflation.