My customers saved my business Forty of Iain Smith’s most loyal clients stepped up in his hour of need, keeping his Exeter wine shop running while he was being treated in hospital
I
ain Smith always intended for his business to be a big part
of his local community, and over the last year his customers have shown him just how important and well-loved an
institution Smith’s Wines has become.
A group of 40 locals, now officially known as Team Smith, have
offered invaluable practical support during Smith’s recent ill
health and he admits that without them the Exeter wine shop would not have survived.
In September last year, Smith was diagnosed with Horner’s
Syndrome – confirming the suspicion of both his osteopath and
one of his own customers. The cause turned out to be cancerous.
“The benefit of having a wine shop a quarter of a mile from the
hospital is that so many of my customers are medics,” he says.
“I’m so lucky to do what I do where I do it. People have been so fabulous, from all the staff on Yarty ward to all my customers.”
He admits he was “really concerned about the business” and
decided to let his loyal customers “know what was going on”.
“I gave them my mobile number and said, ‘there will be times
when I won’t be in the shop. I need your support more than ever now, so please don’t go to Waitrose or Spar. Just give me a call and I’ll get some wine to you.’
“That’s when people started saying, ‘well, I work from home
– I can come and sit in your shop for a few hours’, and that was
the beginning of Team Smith. Forty of my customers, my friend
Simon [Tomlin] included, offering to do shifts in the shop to keep it running so that I didn’t have to worry.
“None of these people knew each other – it wasn’t like a pre-
existing group of friends getting together and saying, ‘let’s
THE WINE MERCHANT OCTOBER 2020 43