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OVER THE COUNTER
Retail Heroics
Below: What’s your retailing Endgame? (Some of the superheroes from Avengers: Endgame). Below left: The Lipstick Effect an affordable treat to keep your spirits up in tough times. Bottom: The appearhere.co.uk website matches clients with business premises.
Independent card and gift retailer, David Robertson, co-owner of JP Pozzi in Scotland, continues the second part of his retailing heroes’ high street battle article (in last month’s PG), inspired by Marvel’s recent movie, Avengers: The Endgame. Heroes never take the easy way out. They never give in. Even when the odds are seemingly against them they find a way to win the day. So guess what? As the business decision makers and drivers of our own destiny it is up to us to find that way. I have written before about the Lipstick Effect, the theory that woman used to buy an affordable treat in tough times to keep them going. They would come browse in store and buy a little something. As retailers we need to be the ones that have that little something to buy, such as a greeting card. Thankfully, cards still are not waning in popularity. The whole shopping experience and the day out in the town centre though does not seem to be the occasion it once was. Now, for whatever reason, people buy what they need as opposed to being tempted into impulse purchases. Perhaps it is a photo on Facebook or a heart on Instagram that lifts our spirits now, but whatever it is it is different from before. Being your own boss and working in the retail sector is simply not much fun anymore. I described it as such to a 30 year veteran agent of this industry recently, who has a client list to die for and is regarded as one of the best. But even he begrudgingly agreed that he has never seen the retail market so random and difficult. Places with destination visitors, tourists, 24
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
family play centres and free car parks he said were still thriving, and I have to agree. Garden centres are perhaps the new shopping mall but what do we do as indies? We can’t suddenly put a bouncy castle in the corner. We have already lobbied and spoken to our councillors but the truth of it is that local government has no money either and some of the strange decisions that it is making are killing the high streets. It is allowing more and more out of town developments, and actually as each new one opens it affects not only the high street but the earlier versions, so now we have shopping centres and out of town places that look really run down as well. Also with major retailers exiting many high street buildings there is no one coming along to fill these big sites. This is where we have to be able to change and move commercial property forward, whether it is
breaking larger buildings down into smaller units with affordable rents or whether it is turning these back into residential accommodation that we drastically need. What we can’t do is allow them to sit and become gaping wounds on our high streets’ already battered body. I have read with interest the development of Ross Bailey and his appearhere.co.uk website. From a simple pop-up shop for the Queen’s Jubilee he has worked with blue chip clients, such as Nike and Coca Cola and is now the largest property broker in London and New York. His model of matching clients with buildings from anything between leases of three months to a year and more has proven very successful and he continues to add new cities to his portfolio. He has also worked on projects such as Old Street Station in London, which was one of the worst in the capital, but since his team’s input has hosted over 500 stores. These retailers are succeeding where others are failing due to location and the need for brands to still physically connect with customers. They are also skilled at getting straightforward deals with landlords, something many of us still struggle with. This does give you some hope, but what it also shows is that a lot of these retail openings are short-term successes that MAY build into something more. It is also interesting that with my other job as a director of Cardzone, I have visited