Latest issue of Retail Design & Technology Magazine out now - December 2011

Dec. 21, 2011 - PRLog -- http://www.rdtmagazine.co.uk/

Stop the doom and gloom

So apparently today is Cyber Monday - the retail equivalent of Black Friday. High streets the length and breadth of England are going to be shopper-free zones as bargain hunters desert their favourite stores in favour of online festive frolicks.

Really? Somehow I doubt it – and if the queues of cars trying to find parking spaces at 8.30
this morning are anything to go by, the high street is getting its fair share of the Christmas
spending spree.

Of course there’s a place for online shopping. Personally I swear by it - and not just at Christmas – but reports of the death of the high street have yet again been grossly exaggerated. It may not be at its most healthy right now, but a global recession has a way of doing that. People are nervous about spending money when they’re not sure when – or if – there’s another pay-check at the end of the month, and continuing Government cuts are not helping the situation.

In truth, there are certain areas of the high street that are suffering badly – Thomas Cook has had to be bailed out yet again over the past few days, and there’s talk of 200-plus TopShop and BHS stores being closed by owner, The Arcadia Group (despite recent reports that BHS was being sold to Primark), but those retailers who invest in a shopping ‘experience’ for their customers, who invoke branding strategies to protect customer loyalty, and invest in their stores - as well as the product on shelves – will win through, fitter, leaner and stronger than before.

The shopping, buying public is sick of sale racks, bargain bins and run down interiors, and let’s face it, if there are really going to be 3,300 sales every minute today, there must be plenty of people with cash to splash! Those are the people who retailers need to target, attract and keep – and they won’t do that with grubby, worn fittings, sale racks and last year’s design. It’s time to speculate in order to accumulate.

And let’s face it, retailing is of national importance in the UK: in 2010 it accounted for 20 per cent of GDP; 10.5 per cent of all jobs (a whopping 40% of the under 20’s) are in the retail sector; and 28 per cent of business rates paid to the Exchequer. Hopefully, those tiny green shoots of recovery that everyone is waiting for will establish in time for a happy, healthy and wealthy future for our industry.

Happy 2012
Gill Anderson, editor

http://www.rdtmagazine.co.uk/

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