If politicians can do it, why can’t retail join forces for the greater good, says Jacqueline Gold
It’s been quite a month for weddings. Like most romantics I love seeing great couples make public their promises to love, honour and cherish each other. It’s restorative for the soul. It’s also good for business.
Most stag and hen parties pay a visit to Ann Summers, as do an increasing number of brides in search of their wedding night lingerie - which tends to be red hot more than it does pure white these days. Start as you mean to go on, I say.
The marriage that I got most excited about though - aside from my own that is - was David Cameron’s to Nick Clegg. The cynics were always bound to call it a marriage of convenience, adding catty predictions on how long they think it might last. Optimists and supporters described their union as a love-in, while the more tempered assessment talked of pragmatism - a coming together for the common good, which sounds a bit like our retail mission statement.
When the new coalition took their vows, the emphasis was most definitely on the sickness rather than the health, the poorer not the richer.
They’ve braced us for forthcoming cutbacks by framing these times as the “age of austerity”, although rather worryingly this makes it sound much longer than just the immediate future. On which point, and for the love of retail sales, can someone please shoot the government spin doctors that seem hell bent on this phrase catching on, so stopping the green shoots of our retail recovery by further denting consumer confidence.
Anyway all this got me wondering whether there are any other unlikely bedfellows in our world - new retail partnerships that might excite the public and bring with them a wave of consumer optimism. In the same way everyone is pleased that Vince Cable’s in the cabinet, is there a way that we can create a new retail coalition? I’d love to see landlords and local councils join forces with us retailers, so that together we can find a way to revitalise our high streets and re-energise our customers, rather than constantly spending too much time, energy and money, negotiating with and against each other. The template for how this should work looks to have been set by New West End Company.
From a consumer’s perspective, the improvements to the retail experience in what are Britain’s most important shopping streets have been spectacular. I’m never sure who should take the lead in making more of these initiatives happen - is it the most senior retailer in town or the local council? Picking up the new mantra of Cameron’s Big Society, we shouldn’t wait and hope for it to happen. Instead we should all take responsibility for our own back yard.
If the still vacant Woolworths in your high street is making your town look down-at-heel, call a meeting with every stakeholder and together plan to make the changes that will ensure we can all retail happily ever after.
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