Whitby, located on the North Yorkshire Coastline is the holiday spot for a great number of holidaymakers, tourists and day trippers. This ancient seaside town well-known for its seafaring traditions and unique character is rising progressively in popularity over recent years.

This increase in tourism has somewhat shifted the pattern of the local shops to cater more and more with the growing volume of vacationers. Even though, as one would expect there are the ‘touristy’ shops, there are an ever increasing variety of the more upmarket establishments which in turn means that Whitby can offer almost anything to everybody.

The East side of Whitby has the reputation of being the ‘older’ side of town because of its historical connections, and it has, over-all, more shops dedicated to the sale of Whitby memorabilia, particularly, Whitby Jet. This world famous commodity is collected and carved in the local area making it one of the oldest industries in Whitby. All kinds of Whitby jet and Whitby jet jewellery are on sale here as well as many other gemstones. There are the traditional jewellers on this side, together with a variety of shops selling costume and ‘fun’ jewellery. As one would expect, there are a variety of outlets specialized in tourism, selling postcards, ornaments, bric a brac etc. A wide variety of clothing retailers give the opportunity to purchase the more traditional ladies clothing, gothic and punk outfits, designer label, outdoor pursuits and trendy young fashions.

There are a variety of cafes and restaurants, alongside the other retail businesses including book shops, a post office, gift shops selling a wide variety of novelties and sculptures and some with a fascinating selection of fossils, quartz and other semi-precious stones. There is a fishing tackle shop, a craft shop and model shop to cater for people that have various hobbies. Wholefood and health food shops together with sweet and rock shops make for an evenly balanced diet!! Toy shops are a particular draw for the children as too are the ice-cream sellers. There are, of course the more ordinary day to day shop types geared more for the local population but all make for a wide base for shopping for locals and visitors.

Whitby’s West Side shops cater also for the holiday population with an intrinsic collection of gift shops and memorabilia, but these are interspersed with the necessities of town life such as banks and building societies. Clothing shops and shoe shops abound on the main two parallel streets of Flowergate and Baxtergate also giving a range of apparel aimed at the young and not so young. At the top end of Flowergate is Skinner Street, a busy street with cafes, restaurants, a chemist, health food and book shop. Along here, in addition to the other streets are the charity shops, which it can be said, cater to the holiday population as visitors like to browse and ‘bag a bargain’. It is on this side of the river that the major food shopping is situated, greengrocers and butchers and not forgetting, the delicious freshly cooked cakes and pies filling the fresh air with mouth watering aromas. A large supermarket with easy access car park for the larger food shopping is situated near the Railway Station and a few stores through which to browse which seem to sell most things in the non-food line are more or less on the other side of the main road.

There are in all probability far too many Whitby shops and stores to list individually but it is safe to say that there are probably enough shopping outlets available to take care of most people’s needs and most certainly those of the holidaymaker and visitor.