SMALL shops are booming again after years of decline.

Enterprising independents grew their like-for-like sales by over 10 per cent in the last eight weeks of 2009 - outstripping the growth of the supermarkets.

Sales of some products that traditionally ‘underperform’ in the sector have leapt by up to an astonishing 30 per cent.

The findings are based on sales data for over 11,000 independent stores, including 5,000 symbols.

Steve Collins, commercial director of market analyst SalesOut, which carried out the survey, told Asian Trader: "We saw a huge rise in sales in the independent sector, which was led in part by a very healthy 12.3 per cent rise in alcohol sales on last year, with cider and sprits up 22.7 percent and 21.1 percent respectively."

Collins added: "There were also some surprising results for products that usually underperform in the independent sector, with pet care products showing a 17 per cent rise and laundry, a staggering 30 per cent increase in like-for-like sales."

Collins said there was some evidence to suggest that the buoyant performance of the pet care and laundry categories was partly due to consumers walking to local shops rather than driving to supermarkets during the heavy snow.

However, these categories had also been boosted by "significant improvements" in convenience store ranges, including the introduction of multi-packs and larger pack sizes in some categories.

Other strong performances in the independent sector were led by confectionery, which grew by 6.8 per cent, and soft drinks, which grew by 9.8 per cent.

However, beer saw only a 3.9 per cent increase - in the face of continually aggressive beer promotions from the multiples coupled with the impact of duty fraud.

Collins said that the "upward trend" in the sector had been going on for some time, and described it as "great news" for manufacturers and independent retailers.

"The convenience market has always been synonymous with brands, which continue to dominate sales in the independent sector.

"The independent sector presents a real opportunity for brands to not only survive the recession but to thrive by filling existing gaps in the distribution of their products, based on real sales insights."