The Secret Retailer: Boris, we face fight for survival without your help

In these unprecedented times, I am grappling with how we proactively manage our business through the coronavirus pandemic.

Retail is a great industry with great people doing amazing things and working incredibly hard to help our customers in any way they can. But it is becoming increasingly hard for leaders to help their colleagues because we simply don’t have the answers to their questions.

“I am in a position of power in our business, but I am powerless to provide my colleagues with any reassurance”

Are we going to be closing our shops? If we close shops, are we going to get paid? Are we going to get paid under these conditions of self-isolation? Look what’s happening in France and Italy, are we going to follow them?

You get all of these questions on a daily basis and all you can say is “I don’t know”, because we have no visibility from the government.

No clarity, no conversation

As a CEO, you are trying to manage everyone’s expectations and plan how you are going to navigate this crisis, but it’s impossible to do without communication from the government. I am in a position of power in our business, but I am powerless to provide my colleagues with any reassurance – because, at a senior level, we haven’t had any of that reassurance from the government.

Food retailers are getting some level of direction from Westminster on the things they need to do to keep supply lines open. At the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got clothing businesses that probably have no idea what’s going to happen.

We’re not a huge company. I’m sure the Tescos and Sainsburys will have a better idea than us of what’s going to happen, but they don’t represent the majority. The majority of us simply don’t know what comes next. There is no clarity; there is no conversation.

“We think it’s no longer a case of if we have to close shops, but when we have to close shops”

The government needs to come up with ways to reassure people that everything is going to be fine. They say they are going to do stuff to help, but they are dragging things out as if it is some big reveal.

Look at the example on Monday with the hospitality sector. Boris Johnson came out and told everyone to avoid pubs, restaurants and theatres, but those operators don’t know what the support from government is going to be, so they can’t really prepare for it.

Johnson says he wants to protect businesses and that no business should close over this situation. We hear what you are saying, but what are you actually doing to back that up?

France has set aside a €300bn package. Our government got nowhere near that with the £12bn it pledged in the Budget. Things are moving and evolving on a daily basis – they need to admit this amount of money is now nowhere near enough and quickly put new fiscal policies in place.

The government does not understand

The government needs to come up with a clear plan of things they are going to do to ensure that businesses – and retail specifically, given the number of people the industry employs – don’t need to worry.

That could range from what we are going to do with respect to sick pay; how we pay people who are looking after loved ones who are sick; the tax implications; if there are retailers with a big rent exposure, what are they going to do there to help?

They could put liquidity into businesses through a 0% cash loan, or give them VAT holidays, just to give some comfort to companies that they are not going to go bust.

It doesn’t have to be an exhaustive list, but four or five points like that would give you the comfort that the government is at least looking at these things seriously.

At the moment, we are second-guessing them. We are in a position where we don’t really know what the next move is going to be, but we are predicting it off the back of what’s going on in parts of Europe. We think it’s no longer a case of if we have to close shops, but when we have to close shops.

“What would be a real travesty is if you have strong businesses like ours that, for whatever reason, don’t make it through this”

How are we going to be financially robust through that? Am I going to have to ask my shopfloor colleagues to take two months of unpaid leave? Are we going to pay landlords when that bill lands next week? Will we still need to pay business rates?

I don’t think the government understands just how big an impact this will have. If you’ve got a fragile business, it was fragile regardless. Carphone Warehouse announced it was closing stores because that was a weak business anyway. It’s the same with Laura Ashley going into administration. Coronavirus is only going to make weak businesses even weaker.

But what would be a real travesty is if you have strong businesses like ours that, for whatever reason, don’t make it through this. Unfortunately, that is entirely possible because CEOs are having to make decisions based on the unknown. If they are fully informed by the government, they might be able to do things differently for the long-term good of their businesses.

At times like this, communication is more important than ever. We need more detailed dialogue from the government about what is going on. The more we know, the more chance we have of surviving this.