srcg senior client director Andrew Phipps urges retailers to ignore the media’s pessimistic approach to the recession and instead follow his upbeat manifesto
…and for everyone else to decide enough is enough. We’ve had it up to here with the economic doom and gloom; it’s obvious the government is as inept as the BBC when it comes to convincing the public that it knows what it is doing.
The pound is in freefall, this is good for our exporters apparently! Someone remind me again what it is exactly we export these days?
We’re a service nation, a nation of shopkeepers, so I think it falls upon the retail industry to pull us out of this nadir.
The current economic issues undoubtedly had their origins in the American mortgage market and the god-like complex of our banking behemoths.
But the exacerbation and continuation of them is to a large extent driven by those purveyors of doom and gloom, the British media industry that exists.
The time has come to reclaim the upper hand and to use our combined retail might to say that’s it, it stops here and now.
Whilst there will continue to be casualties in the front line, ‘Woolworths RIP’, there needs to be a realisation that without positive thinking and actions there will be no change and we will be in the same position come next Christmas.
We need to create a manifesto for change; this manifesto should be developed by the leaders and finance directors of each of our major retailers and suppliers.
The main focus of the manifesto needs to be fourfold:
1. Do as I have done and put commercial sensibilities to one side for a moment and realise that purist capitalism is not the only way forward.
2. To save other retail operators from going out of business. With the knock on effect closure has on people through the spectre of unemployment and the resulting reduction in disposable income the time has come to help each other.
3. To enter a 12 month non-competition agreement. Each retailer to focus on consolidation and to agree not to overtly compete via unsustainable price reductions or inane promotional mechanics.
4. Finally to save costs by working together where competitive forces allow, i.e. shared distribution networks.
As retailers and suppliers we need to engage as never before and put petty differences behind us.
We need to create a win-win-win-win scenario; win for the retailers, win for the suppliers, win for the economy and win for the shopper.
It is possible; unusual times call for unusual measures.
If you think these are pie in the sky ideas then you’ve begun to believe the press and nothing will ever change.
Our main focus in this time of unconscionable turmoil must be to safeguard the retail industry as a whole and in turn safeguards people’s jobs and their ability and desire to spend money.
The more jobs that are lost, the less money in the economy, the less spending in stores, the more stores that close, the more jobs that are lost… Unfortunately it is a vicious circle.
If we can use the 12 days of Christmas to turn this into a virtuous circle then it will indeed be joy to all men this festive season.
