OUTLOOK 2019
It’s certainly been a tricky 12 months... Aodhan Connolly, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, says like consumers, his confidence isn’t what it once was
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sually when I sit down at this time of year to take a brief look back at the last 12 months, and look at the approaching New Year, I can make an educated guess about what is going to happen, and 90% of the time I get it right. This is thanks to the hard work of our data analytics team in London who spend hours poring over everything from consumer behaviour, to market performance, and even global commodity prices. However, this year, like our consumers, I am simply less confident and that is largely down to Brexit. At the time of writing we have no deal and the Brexit clock is ticking loudly enough to be heard across the Irish Sea and the Channel. We are getting closer to a no deal Brexit that will simply be a disaster for Northern Ireland businesses and households. We already have half of the discretionary income of households in Great Britain as well as lower wages, so any future cost rises will be felt exponentially more by NI families than anywhere else in the UK. In the Brexit debate, the Northern Ireland Retail
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Consortium and our members have tried to be the arbiters of common sense, asking the tough questions about what the challenges and benefits of Brexit will be not only for our industry but for the hard-pressed families across Northern Ireland. Our members have concerns about the integrity of supply chains, from groceries to medicines, and have yet to receive satisfactory answers as to how these will be resolved. But Brexit is not the only reason that 2019 is shaping up to be a challenging year for the retail industry and consumers. Yet again another year has passed with no changes to our antiquated business rates system. Retail is undergoing a seismic shift in response to how consumers are shopping. We have already seen the number of stores in Great Britain contract and that will start happening here in Northern Ireland so retail will no longer be able to hold up this archaic system. We are heartened by the enthusiasm and vision of Sue Gray, the relatively new permanent secretary at the Department of Finance, and we hope that 2019 could be the year that we see some much-needed fresh thinking and
innovation in the business taxation arena. We also have little access to the millions of pounds that we are paying in to the Apprenticeship Levy. It is effectively just another tax on NI businesses. We need reform to allow us to remove the barriers of age and of delivery that mean that the system and the Levy do not work for our industry. For consumers, the Brexit uncertainty has already seen the value of the pound in their pocket shrink. Although retailers have done their best to absorb some of the rising costs, inflation will mean the price of the weekly shop growing and that is before we have any rises from a deal or no deal scenario. I am aware that this is not the optimistic look ahead that I usually write and I sincerely hope that I am proven wrong. But one thing is a constant in Northern Ireland and that is the resilience of our business and our shoppers. We have a long history of cutting our cloth to suit our circumstances and I have no doubt that we will do the same in 2019 no matter how hard it is. See you on the other side. ■