JUST A THOUGHT

Sam Taylor from The Retail Fixers consultancy welcomes the return of non-essential retailing.

A CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM

April 12 is the date the Government has given for a further relaxation of the lockdown rules, which allows non-essential retail to reopen. It has been estimated that the cost of lost sales to non-food stores during lockdown is now over £22 billion and counting.

Retailers are desperate to open their doors again. The phrase “cautiously optimistic” has been picked up and discarded many times over the past year but as we emerge from lockdown 3.0, independent retailers are tentatively reintroducing it back into their lingo.

Yet, with this very welcome next step in the roadmap, we are still left with a number of unknowns; some of which will be defined by the Government closer to the date, such as whether the two metre rule will still be in place and for how long, whether changing rooms can be used and what advice there will be for staff social distancing.

This is all to be advised over the next few weeks but there are also many unknowns, which we can only speculate over. How has consumer behaviour changed over the past year? We know that sales have inevitably transferred across to online but will people be willing to get back into our shops? There are promising indications, not least from the successful vaccine roll-out. Will we see a spike in the grey pound initially, or will the reticence persist? Until the doors open, we will not know the answer to these questions.

We have spoken to a number of our clients about their thoughts about opening their doors again and generally there is a lot of positivity; albeit tinged with apprehension. Mish, who is a partner at The Retail Fixers and has her shop in Wadebridge, commented: “We are so excited to be reopening and getting back to serving our customers in person. We have pivoted to providing our bra fittings to zoom but obviously we can provide a faster and higher quality service in person.” When asked about the challenges her business is facing, she continued: “There are of course questions still to be answered; as a business our service relies on having our changing rooms open, so that is a key concern to us, as well as keeping our customers and staff safe”. This is the same for our other clients, one of which will only start to open up once all of their staff have received their vaccines.

How has consumer behaviour changed over the past year?

June 21 will be another key milestone, especially for Cornish shops, given the proportion of gift shops; browsing and touching are key elements in enticing customers into the store and from there converting sales. If all restrictions are lifted, this could potentially be fantastic news, especially for those retailers with smaller shop space. I think we will continue to see retailers be inventive with how they display stock, especially if they have the ability to take their merchandising outside of the shop.

So, we wait and we watch for greater clarification before the doors open and then we wait and we watch to see how our customers behave, as we continue to caveat our optimism with caution.