All Drenthe cities have a shopping evening, one on the Thursday, the other on Friday evening. But where buying evenings were visited in the past, entrepreneurs notice that the night of shopping is under great pressure nowadays. A tour of the largest shopping cities in our province shows that nowadays not all retailers participate in the shopping evening.
Do the shopping evenings still have a right to exist? That discussion is regularly held within entrepreneurial clubs. Yet all Drenthe cities do not (yet) think about stopping.
In fact, Meppel has taken the initiative to breathe new life into the shopping evenings. “See it as a kind of last attempt, against the national trend, to keep a shopping evening for Meppel,” says Marcel Arp. He is chairman of the Meppeler Trade Association.
“Not only in Meppel, but also national you notice that it will be calmer during the shopping evenings. The stores that are still open, want to turn the tide. We all do that, including the hospitality industry. A number of entrepreneurs have taken the lead in this and so the is the Crazy Friday originated, “says Arp.
With theme days in the shopping area in the Fridays, the entrepreneurs hope that visitors will stick to Meppel at the end of the afternoon, eat a snack and visit the shops in the evenings. “We are going to do this for three months with a theme every Friday. The first” Crazy “Friday, combined with a spring market that also continued until the evening, was actually quite a success,” says ARP enthusiastically.
Also in Coevorden there is talk of how the shopping evening, there on Thursday, can be made more attractive. Events or musical accompaniment is also considered there, but it remains a struggle, says the Coevorder Center Manager Edwin Boomstra. “You have a lot of local stores here, run by a couple. If a shopping evening cannot go out, I understand that they choose to be with the family in the evening.”
“You notice that the interest in the buying evenings has been destroyed in recent years. It is no longer what it has been. But you can see a difference between the dark period and the summer here. If the weather is better, more shopkeepers participate in the shopping evenings. That is of course also the period in which Coevorden benefits more from tourism.”
BOSTERRA will exchange Coevorden for Assen from next month, where he succeeds current inner city director Kjeld Vosjan. The provincial capital has a completely different shopping area, but is struggling with the same problems. Vosjan: “We have seen since coronation time that the shopping evening is becoming more difficult. And the enthusiasm differs enormously, but it decreases in general.” The number of retailers who participate also varies per shopping street, says the Asser inner city director.
There is a similar image in Hoogeveen. Not all entrepreneurs participate in the shopping evening on Friday evening either. “But we are certainly not considering scrapping the shopping evenings, since there are entrepreneurs in the city center who experience it as a very positive evening. And we want to continue to offer our consumers the opportunity to come and shop in the evenings,” says Mark Schonewille on behalf of the entrepreneurs in Hoogeveen.
Laurens Meijer is the center manager of Emmen and according to him the shopping evening on the Thursday in Emmen is no longer the outing of the past. Yet, according to him, there are entrepreneurs who swear at the shopping evening. “I do hear from entrepreneurs that shopping evenings are successful, especially in the fashion industry. The deletion of the shopping evening is therefore not up for discussion here.”
Edwin Boomstra also recognizes that image in Coevorden. “It is striking that the fashion stores always do very well in the evenings, which entrepreneurs really don’t want to stop. And that also applies to the shopping Sundays.”
In any case, the buying evenings remain food for discussion among entrepreneurs. The necessary possible changes are discussed in brainstorming sessions. From complete event evenings (Meppel and Assen), switch to another evening (Emmen), only shopping evenings in the summer months (Coevorden), to the possible scrapping of the store evening (Assen), all kinds of suggestions come by. But really rigorous changes are not being implemented for the time being.
In Meppel they are in any case hopeful with the new initiative taken for the shopping evenings. Or the Crazy Friday The desired effect will have to be seen in the city in the coming weeks. “We hope with such a joint approach that it can also be taken out for the small entrepreneur to open the doors in the evening,” said the Meppeler Handelsvereniging.