Best Practice - A voice for retail

Case Study

A Voice for Retail

Launching a new trade engagement group to reinvigorate and engage the retail sector in the town centre.

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The Project Bournemouth has an active Chamber of Trade and Commerce which maintains regular, open and productive dialogue with key organisations and represents trade and business groups as one voice. Although there had been a retail trade group in the past, this had been missing for some years. The NCTA was asked to establish a new group with key representatives from the town.

The Background The NCTA was approached by the town’s Chamber of Commerce to create a town centre trade/retail group to work with the Chamber, to bring it in line with other sectors in the town. As an independent body, the NCTA was ideally placed to facilitate this and to promote its customer care initiatives with this important visitor-facing sector.

The Client The NCTA works with all visitor-facing businesses in the town, of which the retail sector is an important part. Bournemouth has a number of trade bodies that are well represented on Bournemouth Borough Council’s tourism groups, including accommodation and attractions, so ensuring the retail sector had an equal voice was key to improving communication and engagement with both the Council and other sectors.

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Case Study : A voice for retail

The Action The NCTA brought together selected representatives from Bournemouth Chamber, Bournemouth Borough Council, retail representatives, Bournemouth University and Bournemouth’s two Business Improvement Districts, to discuss the piloting of a new trade group.

The initial discussion centred on the twin issues of information sharing; and the difficulty of engagement with the retail sector due to its working patterns.

To address whether there would be sufficient engagement to make trade group representation valid, Bournemouth University suggested a team of first year retail students canvas opinion among town centre shops on a number of issues, including whether the group would be useful.

A group of students then undertook a questionnaire survey with two objectives.

First, to establish opinion on extended opening hours - seen as key to the tourism offer year round; second, to ask whether increased communication with stakeholders through the Chamber would be beneficial .

Costs of this action were minimal but some staff resources were required to engage and motivate retailer involvement. The NCTA played a key role in driving the initiative forward. Regular meetings were arranged and chaired by the NCTA while the group established. Longer term it was decided that the Town Centre BID should take over the leadership of the group.

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Case Study : A voice for retail

Results A regular forum of stakeholders that could facilitate communication with the Council would be welcome, as would a newsletter or webpage to allow ideas and opinions to be shared. Although the research undertaken is purely an indicator as the sample size was small, the findings also confirmed an interest in an extended hours programme but that all retailers would need to be involved to have a significant impact, and that free town centre parking and security for staff working late were barriers to its implementation. These findings have been disseminated and will form agenda items for the new retail forum to tackle going forward.

Conclusion A Chairman for a new retail group has now been proposed. The NCTA will continue to facilitate the group in the short term; however the Town Centre BID, with its links to levy-paying businesses, is likely to be the lead organisation for the future, once staffing issues have been addressed.

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