With less than a month to go before 25 December, shops across the UK are gearing up for the Christmas rush, but so are the larger retailers' marketing machines. The FPB believes that, for some of the best bargains around, shoppers should look no further than their high street shops.

"Consumers can also help support the campaign to halt the demise of the high street," said the FPB's National Chairman, Len Collinson. "Due to their buying power, which includes predatory pricing and other unfair strategies, the big supermarkets often take advantage of their size and scale and undermine smaller shops by drawing people away from them."

"Despite expensive Christmas advertising campaigns to convince us that larger retailers, such as supermarkets, provide the best range of food, drink and gifts, the FPB believes it is high street shops that offer unrivalled levels of service, choice and quality," he added.

FPB member Omar Ashlan, of Amador D Arte Fina, an art shop in Knutsford, Cheshire, said that supermarket chains tend to stock identical product ranges, wherever their stores are based. Local high street retailers, however, offer customers a unique experience.

"You are walking into a specialist shop to buy something different that you can't get in big supermarkets," he said. "Exclusivity is nowhere to be seen in those places, and you don't want to end up at the ball in the same dress as everybody else."

The FPB is urging shoppers to step in where the Competition Commission has so far failed, and snub the supermarkets. Last month the Commission published the provisional findings of its inquiry into the groceries market. The inquiry registered concerns that larger retailers were able to transfer unexpected costs onto their suppliers, but the FPB believes that it has not gone far enough to prevent the abuse, or protect the anonymity of suppliers giving evidence.