OWNERS of Swindon's independent stores say three lockdowns have forced them to think differently about their businesses.

The lockdown roadmap, revealed by Boris Johnson last week, sees non-essential retail reopening next month. 

Ross Mulholland, the owner of Something Different Gift Shop in the Brunel Shopping Centre, says the store will be ready to reopen on April 12 – but also wouldn’t be surprised if the big day is delayed. 

He said: “I’m not one to count my chickens before they hatch. 

“We’re planning to reopen on April 12 but, as with many people, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a little longer. 

“Everyone would have liked to be open sooner but it is what it is and we’re going to keep selling online. 

“We’ll keep trying to get the store as ready as possible when we reopen so it looks better than ever. 

“We’re trying to stay as productive as possible and using the time we’ve got now to make some improvements. 

“It’s bittersweet really, we’ve been able to take the time and look at things that we might not have been able to otherwise.

“We’re well versed in lockdowns now, we’ve been doing a lot more in this lockdown than we were in the first one. 

“Now that we’ve got a goal in mind, a guideline, it gives us a more structured approach to what we get in and what we sell.”

Located above Something Different in the Brunel Centre is the Incredible Comic Shop. 

Co-owner Jonathan Brown is pleased a date has been set but feels the prime minister could have been kinder when setting out his roadmap.

He said: “The news is good, obviously. Personally, in a selfish way, I would have preferred to hear news of reopening earlier but at the same time I’m glad it’s not too soon as we want to make sure it’s safe. 

“We’ve geared ourselves up to face March in lockdown, we’ve lowered orders and tried to stop bleeding money.”

Jonathan added that the current lockdown saw seen his store losing money because of the amount of stock that has come in. 

He added: “Annoyingly, we’re a company that orders three months in advance so in December we ordered all the way up to the end of February. 

“So in January and February we received way more stock than we needed, we haven’t been selling enough, so we’ve been bleeding money again. 

“But luckily we were able to cut March’s stock down. We’ll face that on much better terms but January and February was a bit of a nightmare.

“We’ve been losing money hand over fist but we knew if we could make it to March we would be in a much better position moving forward.”

Despite the losses, Jonathan says online selling will become part of the store’s future.

“We’re covering about 30 per cent of our expenditure doing our click and collect and selling things online,” he said. 

“Over the past year we’ve been doing a bit online but we didn’t have much of an online presence. 

“The past year has geared us up to make online sales a part of our future now, that’s not something we had considered before.

“Now it seems to be our focus going forward, to try and enter that market a bit more.”