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OPINION
RIGHT TO RETAIL? Business direction is never black and white. When faced with punishing trading restrictions through successive lockdowns, retailers have been forced to balance social responsibility with the need to keep trading – with mixed results. This month, Paul Farley explores the ethical questions the industry has asked itself throughout the pandemic, and considers the longterm impact of actions both laudable and questionable …
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FOR EVERY EXAMPLE OF RESPONSIBLE RETAILING, THERE WAS ANOTHER THAT RESISTED GOVERNMENT GUIDANCE IN ITS HUNGER TO DO BUSINESS
From manufacturers turning out PPE to retailers raising funds to support those impacted by closures and job losses, Covid-19 has brought out the best in so many. The Financial Times reports that as of June, British business had repaid £709m of Job Retention Scheme (JRS) monies to HMRC, homewares retailers IKEA and ScS among them – encouraged by its strong performance across the year, the latter repaid £3m in furlough grants. When the pandemic hit, Dunelm furloughed 8000 staff, yet after putting them back to work in May to serve a boom in demand, the retailer saw a +29.7% increase in sales in Q3 alone, prompting it to return the £14.5m it had claimed in JRS monies, and to reject the offer of subsequent schemes and bonuses. Dunelm instead introduced its own, self-funded furlough equivalent, to protect vulnerable staff and those not working due to the restrictions. Others made a point of going beyond the letter of lockdown law to help halt the spread of the virus. In January, as well as reducing the range of services it carried out in people’s homes, John Lewis suspended its in-store Click & Collect services, stating that it was
conscious of “the increased need to remove reasons for non-essential travel during the current lockdown, to help encourage the public to stay at home”. At the time, JLP’s executive director of operations, Andrew Murphy, said: “We’ve listened carefully to the clear change in tone and emphasis of the views and information shared by the UK’s governments in recent days. While we recognise that the detail of formal guidance has not changed, we feel it is right for us – and in the best interests of our partners and customers – to take proactive steps to further enhance our Covid security and related operational policies.” Yet, for every example of responsible retailing, there was another that resisted Government guidance in its hunger to do business. In March last year, Mike Ashley refused to close Sports Direct, while opportunistically hiking the price of home exercise products – and in November’s lockdown, The Range, plus major flooring chains Carpetright and Tapi, remained open, courting controversy for their insistence on continuing to trade despite majoring in ‘non-essential’ goods. Indeed, the regulatory wording was often ambiguous. In that first lockdown, the Government permitted ‘homewares’ retailers to reopen in May (guidance which was seized upon by various furniture retailers including Furniture Village, ScS, DFS and Barker & Stonehouse as a green light to trade) – only later clarifying that furniture retail instead fell within the ‘non-essential’ category, and should, in fact, wait until 15th June to do so. Having gone through the arduous and costly process of realigning their stores to meet the Government’s Covid-19-safe guidelines, those retailers already committed to reopening could perhaps be forgiven for going ahead and doing so. It’s nigh-impossible to discern, praise or condemn in any hardand-fast manner how businesses conducted themselves through those unprecedented times. The decision to shut up shop started out as a matter of conscience, yet later became one of survival, prompting many to consider
