20-21.qxp_Grid 14/08/2019 12:39 Page 20
OVER THE COUNTER
The Party Line Independent card and gift retailer, David Robertson, co-owner of JP Pozzi in Scotland, discusses the use of Britain’s new PM’s positive language and how to harness it to get ahead. It is quite simple, you don’t discuss politics or religion when it comes to retail businesses. But why? Well, as you are dealing with such a cross section of the public you never know what everyone is thinking. Taking a very public stance on certain politics can alienate customers and that is the last thing you need. Personally, I have felt for a long time that politics is more about actually point scoring from all sides rather than concentrating on the tasks at hand. In truth, it seems to be the civil servants that do the lion’s share of the work. Jamie Halcro Johnston MSP, appointed shadow minister for Jobs, Employability and Training, is visiting our local Chamber of Commerce in a few weeks and I have signed up to attend. As is customary with these things you have to submit your questions in advance, or at least highlight the areas you want to tackle because they need to have the answers ready! I wanted to use this opportunity to raise the following issues with the minister that I feel affect us all: l Lack of true support for the High Street there’s a sticking plaster approach currently. l Inconsistency in decisions at local and national government. One example being the granting of Class 1 retail to many out of town developments. l Business rates - the current scheme is punitive and does not encourage growth. l Internet tax - the taxes on many of these online companies are being avoided and are unfair considering the high street rates bricks 20
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
and mortar retailers face. They should have to pay appropriate tariffs to make it a level playing field. l Living Wage - the 4.9% annual increase hits small to medium enterprises who have to keep finding that money when it is outstripping inflation. This is a very taboo subject as everyone wants to reward staff but equally paying the increase/pension etc has resulted in many businesses reviewing/cutting staff. l Corporation Tax changes and how little it really benefits the type of business we are. l Finally, there is little incentive to grow businesses and create jobs as in truth the risk to reward is not there, particularly in our retail sector For me, all these questions actually gel together to create the huge problems that retailers face. These current challenges of course, against the backdrop of uncertainty over life in general, means customers are less keen to spend. Our industry, like many others, is changing and in my opinion people don’t really want to buy ‘stuff’ anymore. Thankfully, they do seem to want to buy cards though and they continue to be our core. It is just whether that will be enough to keep us all going. Having raised these points in many business meetings over the last few years, I had to grasp the opportunity to speak to a minister, not from any political standpoint, but simply from the stance that this is my business and these are my concerns for myself and my 60 odd staff. We find ourselves now with a new PM in Boris! The very fact that I would write that
Above: Comedy, The Thick of It, satirises British government’s inner workings. Below left: The risk to reward is lacking in the retail sector - a card from Danilo’s Ladybird Books for Grown-Ups. Bottom: New PM, Boris Johnson.
sentence with his middle name as apposed to Mrs May or Mr Corbyn in itself means that he has played a clever game of setting himself up in a different way. Bumbling fool, liar, old Etonian, charismatic, great leader - your opinion may be one, all or none of these, but the bottom line is he is here to stay and we are going to have to deal with what he and his new cabinet do in these coming months. In terms of Brexit, and the impact that would have on us small operators, no-one is really sure, and again I think that we have to concentrate on us and what we are doing rather than worry about something that we will have little influence over. Certainty is what we are looking for and a decision of some kind is key. What I did find very interesting though is the way that Boris has been speaking. The tone, the jokes, the clever use of words, and perhaps more than anything the narrative of ‘we will, we can and we are’. There is no self-doubt. There is no bending. There