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OVER THE
COUNTER
BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE.
The Home Straight? Pride, worry, hope, uncertainty, anger, belief and tiredness are just a few of the words that come to mind as I write this. It does feel though that we are taking a bit of a kicking. Whether it be about Christmas cards being printed in China, the Royal Mail strikes or the common thread from people like Martin Lewis questioning whether folk need to buy that card or present. This is normally the home straight. This is normally when we are always a little worried that the tills will ring, but secretly at the back of our minds we know that it always comes. There is always that ‘switch’ when people say, “It’s Christmas” and the cards get bought, the gifts get bought and they will worry about paying for it all in the New Year. This year however it is different. I have heard lots of discussions among families, mine included, saying that we won’t do this or that. Obviously, Santa needs to come and the food needs to be bought but token gifts and more sensible purchases may be the order of the day. We are all tired of hearing about energy costs, interest rates, recession, taxes and a million other negative things. We couldn’t even enjoy celebs in the jungle eating animal parts without being reminded of how out of touch with reality our politicians are. Yet somehow through all this mess we are supposed to run a business, pay staff, pay our suppliers and hope that there is something left for us. Indeed, all of the above was born out by questions a new staff member asked customers in our recently opened dedicated Christmas shop this past weekend. Off her own back she wanted to see why the spend was not as we hoped. Some of the answers she heard were “it doesn’t feel like Christmas”, “we can’t 18
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Above: Bijou’s new dedicated Christmas shop. Left: Giant candy canes add to the Christmas feeling in Bijou. Below: The Art File’s charity Christmas boxes are a standout for David.
believe it’s November already”, “we don’t have the money this year but love looking at what you have” and “the shop is beautiful, but I wouldn’t pay £5 for a card or bauble.” Our new building on the beach should have been built and open by now. We bought Christmas stock in January and February with the belief it would be and instead we had to do a ‘Matt Hancock Pivot’ and convert the front area of our beauty business back into a retail space, resulting in the opening of our dedicated Christmas shop. When I look at all the stock we have selected from companies both old and new quite simply I love it. The way that we have merchandised it in all our stores is as good as we ever have done in what is our 34th year of selling Christmas. I have never been more proud of the work my mum and our team have done to get the shops looking as they do and now. I love our Christmas windows, the sugar canes, sweet tree, the soft pastel pink and gold angels, the dark navy colourway
and of course the Gonks. I especially love the Belly Button wrap, the Five Dollar vintage range, The Art File charity collection and Woodmansterne relations cards. We just have to hope that members of the public will venture out and spend as quite simply the High Streets across the land need it. As well as the general economic challenges, we also have those associated with being located in the town centre with car park charges, empty buildings, business rates and even distance from car to store in bad weather all influencing resultant sales. Destination retail, where you park for free at the door, seems to get stronger all the time and I have yet to hear any politician showing that they really understand or care