Retail needs a touch of excitement

The party’s over. The royal wedding was our last great retail hurrah. The sales we celebrated in April boosted by the happy day and glorious weather are not long to reign over us.

Sales that were perkier than Pippa Middleton’s bottom are now looking ghastlier than Princess Eugenie’s outfit. God save retail.

Well that seems to be the gist of it if you read the latest dispatches from the front line. Consumer spending has become more prudent but yours would too if your TV kept telling you that your job was on the line and everything has gone up in price.

I hear that even the traditional recession busting retail pick-me-ups of lipsticks and accessories have been hit. But once again I do think we compound the genuine issues facing consumers by doing our best to talk ourselves down.

So here’s some good news instead: in the first four months of this year unemployment fell, manufacturing and GDP went up and corporation tax is down. The iPad 2 is flying off the shelves, as is our new Rampant Rabbit Touch, which responds intuitively to your innermost needs and desires. It’s very clever.

The reason I mention the iPad 2 and the Rampant Rabbit Touch is because they are both good examples of how if you have a market-leading innovative product, customers will buy it no matter how concerned they are about the economy.

We’ve all been pruning our businesses over the last couple of years but how many have cut the branches that will bear fruit such as these? How many have focused on price, hoping they can trade through these challenging times by stealing share, rather than exciting customers with amazing new products?

I’ve always been a fan of Asda, not because they’re cheap - for me that’s a given - but because you’ll often discover interesting and exclusive products there, that you won’t see in other supermarkets.

It sounds like a subtle shift in strategy but it’s good to hear they’re placing more emphasis on their brilliant Chosen By You range and a little less on how cheap they are.

“We compound the genuine issues facing consumers by doing our best to talk ourselves down”

Over the last 12 months we’ve focused our investment on innovation, most notably by recruiting a new buying team who, in record time, have not only delivered a fresh product strategy but they’ve also produced the first of many stunning new products too.

The step-change they’ve brought to our business is incredible, as you’ll see in our new catalogue. Their products have helped inspire and energise every other department, including our agency partners working on our next retail store design.

Which brings me on to a challenge we all share: how to make our high streets more vibrant and enticing. A project like this would make great TV, especially if they did it as a spin-off - ‘The Only Way Is Lakeside’ or ‘Hollyoaks: Let Loose In The Trafford Centre’.

The good news is that with Mary Portas leading it, at least we’ll be guaranteed another royal hurrah.

Jacqueline Gold is chief executive of Ann Summers.