nickshanagher

At the launch party for Pro-retail 2012 held in London this January most of the independent retailers there told me they were inspired by Palmer and Harvey’s taster event for the Futurezone. The Futurezone is a multi site feature of this year’s Pro-Retail trade exhibition to be held at Telford on 24 and 25 April. So when I saw the pre-publicity for Michio Kaku’s new book, Physics of the Future , and its promise to show what the world would be like in the year 2100, I was inspired to have a read and to report back to local retailers on what the future holds. The book delivers on this promise but on so much more as well. If you are a business person who likes new ideas and to think about what may work this is a book for you This paragraph from his introduction hooked me. If you like it you will love the book. “Later, when I was in high school, I decided to follow in the footsteps of these great scientists and put some of my learning to the test. I wanted to be part of this great r...

"Coast Ghost" it says in a headline in the Sun today and underneath "Margate worst for boarded-up shops" with a table showing that 37.4 per cent of shops in Margate are empty. The Local Data Company, which press releases this data every month, really does independent shops no favours with its negative doom-laden coverage of the retail sector. Shops are always opening and closing. Thirty years ago, every high street would have had a TV rental shop. 10 years ago it would have been a video rental shop. Shopping patterns change. While there is an issue for many high streets, it is often a property development issue rather than a retail quality issue. The problem is that too many people read these stories and think that out-of-town supermarkets are killing local independents. That is not the story. The story is that local independent shops are doing great. Remember to tell your shoppers about the great products and services that you offer them. Avoid the gloom.

Last weekend I spent some time discussing business with 10 local retailers from all parts of the UK. Their message was that sales are tough.  Probing further, they were saying that they were trading 10 per cent down year-on-year, on average. What were they doing about this? They were out in the market looking for new ideas, things that would work for their shops. However, many accept that progress will take some time. One shopkeeper told me how she could see her customers counting out how much money they had to spend before coming into her shop. While this was depressing, she is looking for ways to get them spending more. Yesterday, talking to wholesalers I heard them saying that sales were flat. While everyone in public wants to talk up how well they are going, they admit that many of their customers, the retailers are struggling. At the same time, across London, Tesco's new UK head was busy talking up how his company is performing. Christmas sales will be the best ever, he ...

Visualising what success looks like is a key way to keep yourself focussed on what you want to achieve. It is the first point that Richard Hammond makes in his book Smart Retail and for the owner manager it is a vital one. Mr Hammond writes about Bob Caton, who taught him the techniques of visioning. Mr Caton told him about the house he built for himself in Thailand. "He bought the patch of land as soon as he could afford to and then every night, at home in England, imagined himself sitting on the vehranda at a house that didn't exist. He would describe to himself how it would feel, the taste of the cold beer in his mouth, the warmth of the breeze on his arms... "The next morning, he would repeat the process and no matter what lay in the day ahead he would get two things achieved - he would feel better about things that he was not all that keen on having to do and he got his house built." The success of your business depends on your ability to motivate your tea...

I was looking at the bench outside the village hall on Saturday evening as the local youth gathered, thinking how the faces change but the attitudes remain the same. The mood changes from bored, to sad, to rowdy, to occasionally menacing. Occasional trips to the local stores ensue, where their older siblings are often employed. Which brought to mind an article by up-market columnist Tyler Brûlé in which he discoursed about the bench outside his shop in Marylebone high street; how it activated the street and created a sense of community. He wrote: "One of the most valuable lessons we’ve learned since moving into the shopkeeping business last November is the importance of offering people a place to sit. The addition of a simple teak bench in front of our London shop a month ago has revealed a number of interesting facts about human behaviour and modern urban planning. The first is that the sheer number of men and women – both young and old – who take up a place on the bench to rest ...

Mike Southern in his weekly column for entrepreneurs says the best way to improve your guanxi is to always treat people like you would want to be treated, to help people wherever possible and to always tell the truth. Guanxi is a Chinese word that equates to well-being and true status. Money is what you have in your bank account, Mr Southern says. Wealth is what you have if your money suddenly vanishes: your knowledge, your reputation and network. For local retailers, as with all business people, these are useful ideas to benchmark what you are doing. Don't just think of it in terms of shoppers that visit your stores. Think of it also in terms of your suppliers and competitors.

Local news retailers in the UK accept a huge numbers of vouchers for newspapers and magazines yet the industry still fails to observe clear standards on how to produce them. As a result, for many local retailers vouchers look like risk rather than cash. Four out of 10 refuse to handle them. For publishers, the purpose of vouchers is to win greater sales. However, independent retailers argue that supermarkets don't care what they redeem vouchers against and have the market muscle to force publishers to pay. If publishers are paying for shoppers to buy other products in multiple outlets, that further damages their investment in the independent channel. Surely it makes sense for publishers to set standards for vouchers that encourage independent retailers to accept them? says Hinkley retailer Mike Hopkins.

The UK's magazine market has been under investigation by the Office of Fair Trading, the UK's competition watchdog, for many years. A recent ruling on the acquisition of the UK's largest magazine wholesaler Smiths News of assets formerly owned by the former number three wholesaler Dawson News makes interesting reading. To make a judgement, the OFT assesses the supply of services to the publishers, which is paid for by a proportion of the cover price and includes delivery of titles and handling returns. And it assesses the supply of services to retailers, which is paid for by carriage service charges, for the right to receive deliveries. As many retailers challenge the back-door way that CSCs were introduced and expanded in the 1990s, it will be interesting to see if this distinction is allowed to go through unchallenged. More interesting is the OFT's concern that if Smiths did not complete the acquisition then some retailers could potentially have been left without su...

Major drinks maker Diageo says it is sticking by its premium brands - such as Johnny Walker whisky - despite City pressure to focus on value alcohol brands. A chart in the FT shows the brands at the top and the bottom are doing OK. Cue the death of the middle articles. It was only six months ago that the City was pressing supermarkets to drop their premium own label brands and suggesting that Waitrose, the up-market grocer, was in trouble. A week ago, both premium own label and Waitrose were back in fashion. For local retailers, the premium brands that matter are those that they can move in sufficient volume to generate a good cash margin. If you hear this noise from the City, ignore it. Visiting your local cash and carry and looking at the shelves to see what is moving and what is not is a better bellwether.