Throughout July to mark Independent Retailer Month some shops are offering discounts, others running competitions and still more putting on live music in a bid to get mre custom.
But nothing here in Dunbar: Independent Retailer Month Events.
A month of events could have been used to raise awareness, but it looks like few took this opportunity seriously, or simply lacked the time and resources to make something happen during what has to be Scotland’s favourite month to take time off. Trades weeks have to be a major cost to Scotland’s economy, just like Bank Holidays and those interminably long school holidays and associated complicated arrangements, which so frustrate those with children at school in city and country.
Returning to the High Street, longer-term initiatives are needed. Resources are needed. Management skills are needed. Time is needed. A revolution is needed. Evolution has not worked well resulting in a somewhat backward looking and deprofessionalised independent sector, competing with highly organised and well funded oppositions, whether it be the supermarkets or chains and betting shops.
Some say there is a need for new ways, designed around the way we currently shop as getting us to fundamentally change the way we shop is going to be uphill. I am not averse to the idea that High Street traders use some of the tactics indulged in by larger retailers. And this is the gist of The Guardian article which ran last thursday and trailed again in the weekend print edition. Interesting to see some locally based versions of tried and tested mainstream initiatives.
Gift Cards (such as Your Street Gift Cards), Loyalty Schemes (see the cute Tag Pass It On link above, or Addictive Points, an innovative plug and play rewards program. Retailersreward their customers, online and offline, for purchasing, sharing, commenting, reviewing, inviting, registrations, and more), Online schemes (such as OpenHighStreet and MyHigh.St) are helping smaller independents compete with the big guys. A new local focus from the much maligned discount site Groupon came when it launched a campaign called “I Love Bradford”. Hum. Aren’t these all recipes that are designed to make money for the scheme operators? Can they really deliver additional value for customers and retailers too by intermediating – or they just a cost of marketing, but trackable and therefore measurable? It is a field rich with opportunities, but will it save the High Street. What is that you are trying to save?
As usual I skip quickly to the comments section in the Guru-adian, where significant blame is placed at the door of traders themselves (mainly for not keeping up with the times), parking policies (though funny how town centres seem to work best in old European market towns where it is a total nightmare to park?), and policy makers and implementers (who have contributed to the mess by making town centres no go areas for residents, ballsing up oneway systems and streetscapes generally to make them unfriendly for people).
There’s a smattering of interesting observations.
What if parking in supermarkets wasn’t free?
What about the high street model changing to fit the working patterns of the customers, not the other way around?
Look to the US – of all places – which has recognised that “dense urban communities” are richer, happier, healthier and have less environmental impact?
We – town dwellers – are paying for the rest of the country to continue living a dystopian surburban fantasy, obsessed with cars, insular but homogeneous and with little or no community (cue a new inaccessible housing development – out of town).
I estimate that only 20% of the people on the street on a week day are in work.
For more dystopian views head over to the Torygraph, and the latest from the planning Minister Nick Bowles, who is as much as admitting that the High Street is dead, as is Mary Portas’ “town centre first” policy, quietly adopted by Malcolm Fraser north of the border here in Scotland.
But I say that if your High Street is closed for business, not just failing to adapt, and is hostile to residents to boot, everyone suffers and will be reflected in house prices going down (who wants to live on dump of a high street?). Low shop rents or similar incentives will just attract the wrong sort of businesses. So there it is – its the economy stupid?