How will the EU referendum affect Britain's High Streets?

There has been much debate about our role in the EU and the upcoming referendum when the country decides whether we stay or leave.

There has been much scaremongering from both sides and it will continue up to and beyond the referendum. The latest has been the Prime Minister with a warning on businesses and jobs-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35769809

So how does this affect retail? What impact will it have on the High Street? Let's take a look.

EU grants

One of the overlooked areas when it has come to the debate has been the handouts that councils have been able to access for regeneration. Some depressed areas have spent you'd money well and turned terrible High Streets in to great shopping destinations. Leaving the EU would revive direct access to these grants and the U.K. Government would need to provide a replacement. If we are net contributors to the EU as we have been told by the 'Leave' campaign then this money could still be found to continue what has been good work in some areas.

Retail businesses

There has been some depressing statistics about the job situation over the next ten years recently anyway. It remains to be seen what a Brexit would mean to our retail industry and the future of our High Street but it doesn't appear that it will spark a massive change. The country is more than capable of quickly agreeing new trade deals with our current EU trading partners to keep open the lines of business. Therefore any worries about trade becoming more expensive should be allayed quite quickly.

Jobs

There has been longstanding fears for job security in times of large level immigration. These fears are global at the moment with the exodus from Africa and the plight of people in Syria and the surrounding area. Leaving the EU won't diminish our responsibility to take in refugees but will give us control back over the one area of immigration that we can't do anything about as it stands - EU immigration. Because of the free movement of people within the EU we have people from all over the continent working in our country. In terms of culture and diversity it is a great thing. In terms of job security for British nationals it may have held back youth employment. I say may because it is difficult to put exact numbers in it. Only a Brexit will give us the chance to see what this will look like.

I don't have any strong feelings at the moment whether in or out is the right thing for the UK, but as time goes by and I listen to what has to be said then I will definitely be voting. Please make sure that you also take part in this important decision-making process.

Retail needs to take the lead on pay - there are too many followers and cost-cutters

In light of a story that has appeared in the news today about wealth, I'm looking at leadership on the issue of pay.

Oxfam report that the richest 1% now has as much wealth as the other 99% combined. This is a moral issue that affects every business, and I believe that it is a leadership issue. Every business has the moral obligation to look after the people that work for them. It's not just pay (which a lot of companies need to go much further on) but working conditions, time off, work-life balance and benefits.

At this moment in time, the UK economy is hugely skewed towards business - particularly big business. Media stories regularly show big business not paying their fair share of tax. The minimum wage has served it's purpose and needs to be replaced by the living wage. The taxpayer is subsidising people with a family to work for these companies through working tax credit.

It's time to take a lead.

Unfortunately many retailers are culprits when it comes to poor pay. The minimum wage seems to be the standard wage for national and multinational retailers. It really isn't good enough. Employees are being squeezed and customers are being squeezed in search of extra profits. Billion pound plus profits for shareholders and company owners while paying frontline employees the barest of minimum wage will be counterproductive in the long run. Having demotivated employees that don't give the same service as customers experienced in the past will lead to declining sales. The bottom line is about far more than just cutting costs.

If you are an independent retailer then look at what you pay end how you incentivise your team. If you work for a larger retailer then it's part of your commitment to your colleagues that you raise the issue if low pay in the correct forums.

See why the entrance to your retail store should shout about your claim to fame

I'm in a local garden centre today and as I walk through the first aisle from the entrance to the café I am a little dumbstruck. I walk no more than 40 yards and I am confronted by-

• Christmas decorations
• Alcoholic drinks
• Books
• DVD's
• CD's
• Jigsaws
• Toys
• Food items
• Non-alcoholic drinks

And then the café itself

I'm struck by a retailer that doesn't really know what it wants to be and what it stands for. I've used this phrase in my blogs before and it means so much-

Decide what you want to become famous for.

Now I'm not talking about the celebrity type of fame that seems to float the boat of so many people today. I'm talking about the famous part of your retail business that customers will talk about and return for. It's been referred to as your USP or your diffetentiator and it's what makes you a success. Woolworths was the prime example to me of a retailer that didn't know what it wanted to be. It tried to be all things to all people and became unimportant to many. I've also blogged about Tesco trying to do everything but ending up doing everything worse than their rivals-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2014/06/tesco-sales-drop-is-about-more-than.html

I don't necessarily think that a retailer shouldn't sell more than one type of product, but the initial message should scream from the rooftops about what you stand for. This retailer I'm in today states that "we do all sorts of stuff." It's not a sparkling message.

Looking around the garden centre, there are places of interest, areas where they do stand out from the competition. The café is very busy and the food looks great quality. The Christmas decorations are vibrant and have a great mark-up. The indoor plants are well-priced and different varieties to other garden centres I've been in. One of these areas should be the absolute focus of the attention as the part of the business that leads customers to walk through the door and return.

For your own business you need to look at what you are doing and make a decision. The decision needs to be around what you think you should be famous for. Once you (and your team) know what this is then position your store so it talks to your customers in those terms-

"Mr and Mrs customer, this is what we do."

See why inflation figures heighten your need to compete on things other than price

The latest inflation figures were announced this week and it's not good reading for retailers-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34514135

The figures show a fall in the inflation rate to it actually showing a negative. This means that prices are falling.

Why is this bad news for retailers?

This is particularly bad news for retailers of high price items. The fact is, that if consumers see prices falling they will put off their large purchases in the expectation that prices will continue to fall and they can save money. This effect really starts to kick in when prices fall consistently over a longer period of time. It works more on high ticket products - televisions, cars, gadgets and computers. So if you're a retailer of these items what can you do? The first thought when looking for customers is often price but that seems like the wrong idea on this occasion. Further price cuts can only deepen the feeling that prices will continue to fall. And increasing prices at this point will put you at a disadvantage to your competition.

So the best thing to focus on is the quality of what you sell. Having a quality product can sell no matter what the market is doing. Look at Apple - their products sell in times of inflation or deflation. Now, we can't all come up with an ipod, iPhone or iPad idea to help our retail business but you can focus on the quality in your own business.

Finding what makes you different

As a retailer you will probably already have an idea what it is that makes you different. It's what sets you apart from other retailers and it could be one of many things-

• Your loyalty scheme
• Your products
• Your customer service
• Your special offers
• Your events

I've written many, many times in this blog about understanding what you do better than others. And this is what you need to concentrate on. I'll give you a few examples-

Waitrose have high prices but their customers love their absolute quality and great customer service.

Boots are very pricey but focus on their loyalty card and customers return.

Aldi mixes price with availability and customers have loved this balance.

So what is your USP? What can you do better than your competition? What are you capable of that nobody else in your town is? These are the things that will drive you forward.

Communicate this with your team, communicate it with your customers and look away from just dropping your price to compete - there are other, better ways to differentiate yourself.

See how a diary of events can help you to plan for next year

I've been around and about shops over the last few weeks and there's a lot of shops trying to make the most of things in what's traditionally a bit of a lull between Back To School and Christmas.

There's a lot of retailers stocking rugby-related products with the World Cup being played presently. I shopped in Durham today and there's an ancillary Back To Uni trade here, as in many university towns and cities. And it's these events that I think can make the difference for independent retailers. I think that keeping a diary of events and how they affect your trade and your team can make a huge effect in how you react to these events in the future.

Planning a broad outline of the events and mini-events of the year will provide you with a framework of the year. You will need to ensure that you have prepared something to reflect these events - extra staff, stock that matches the event, dressing up the store, etc.

You'll need to take account of-

• Easter
• Christmas
• Hallowe'en
• Back to school
• Back to university
• New Year
• Mother's Day
• Father's Day
• Sports events (World Cups, Olympics, Wimbledon, etc)
• Valentines day
• Pay day weekends
• Local events

It's by having this set up and making notes of how it all affected you (including notes of what you did differently) that will give you a framework for these events next year.

You can try different things when approaching these events. There are many options, including-

• Changing opening hours
• Bringing more staff in
• Staging an in-store event
• Sending out email reminders to your mailing list
• Giving extra loyalty points or coinciding a sale with the event

It's by trying these different things and having notes to refer back to that you will start to build a picture of what works.

NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE BOUGHT ON THE HIGH STREET

A lack of consistency frustrates your long-term team members

The reason I mention this is I've recently been working with a retailer and there have been a lot of changes happening, linked to the appointment of a new area manager. Many of these changes are reversing decisions made over the last two or three years. The effect this is having is that the longer term movers of the team are confused and frustrated as to why these reversals are taking place. As conscientious members of the team, they took in the reasons for the initial changes and worked hard towards ensuring that they educated teammates and customers in the new processes. The entire team understood the reasons given for the changes and got behind these reasons.

The reversal of changes, unfortunately with little explanation from the management team, looks like one of three things-

*the company has no long-term plan

*they have a long-term plan but it's not working

*the management team don't know the long-term plan

And it's the perceived hypocrisy that frustrates and annoys the workers.

Long-term planning is key to the structure of a business and it gives the guidelines for every other decision that the business makes. It's important to ask of every decision - does it fit into the long-term plan? The framework of the business revolves around the long-term strategic planning that takes place at the top of the organisation. These strategies look at the course of the organisation over the next 2 years and beyond. This, in turn, dictates the short-term decisions that affect the day-to-day and week-to-week running of the business and each of it's outlets.

For example, if you decide that the long-term plan is to have a great conversation with every customer then you will need to put things in place to make that happen. You will probably need more staff, a dedicated training programme and an area in your store where these conversations will happen. And you'll probably set off along the road to carry out these steps.

Now imagine, that you cut staff and remove the 'conversation area' from your store without communicating any reasons for the change. Your team would feel confused and at least a little lost as to what parts of their roles to continue and what parts to change.

And you can understand how the team members felt with the retailer I have been working with.

Do organisations have an obligation to people other than their shareholders?

I ask this question because, as I grow older, read more about the world and experience life with more and more organisations I see things that perhaps I hadn't seen before.

I've recently read the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi and one of the  overwhelming themes was living on what you need to get by.

I would put it to you that many, many multinational organisations gather in vastly more resources than they need and yet their staff at the bottom level struggle to exist on the minimum wage. The question emerges - do the leaders of the organisation at the top have more of an obligation to look after their employees (higher wages, more annual leave and better benefits) than their obligation to their shareholders (lower costs, greater profit and better dividends)?

And it's not just with wages that I feel organisations need to look at their obligations. I read this article yesterday with some interest-

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/boots-to-cut-700-office-jobs-in-the-uk-10305508.html?origin=internalSearch

A genuine "restructure" where a company redeploys it's resources into different parts of the business for commercial reasons makes sense. Adapting the online offering, moving people from traditional marketing to the social media team or moving people from one store to another to react to customer demand all make sense.

The euphemistic restructuring that companies use as a buzzword now means job cuts and a drive to reduce the overheads a business faces - at the detriment of the workers who lose jobs, have hours cut, have to relocate, are under-employed or don't deal with the change very well, sometimes because they aren't supported through this change by the organisation that brought it about.

Again, it begs the question of where the company's priority obligation lies.

I've often thought that there are enough people in the UK that believe in equality and fairness and they could be mobilised to buy shares in a company and apply pressure on the policies that the company has, in terms of salaries, environmtal considerations and ethical business practices.

A stitch in time saves nine applies to business as well

There is such a thing as work that stops more work. For instance, at home yesterday my wife didn't want to take the extra 30 seconds in checking that she had the right log-in details for online banking. She put in the wrong code 3 times, and locked herself out of accessing the account. This prompted a 5 minute telephone call to the bank, passwords being reset and having to effectively re-register through the system to select new passwords and then having to reset access through the apps on both the iPhone and the ipad. In total, approximately 15 minutes of extra work.

And it's like that in retail. Being able to see events before they happen comes from forward-thinking and experience. Having witnessed events unfold before is a good market that they may happen again if left unchecked. Seeing an employee is unhappy or down is the point in time to deal with it - not waiting until they've handed in their notice. The extra work in ensuring that they are happy is a lot less work than dealing with the fallout and the recruitment and training process.  Having that sit down talk and being able to listen and hopefully help one of your team is easier than processing the resignation, doing exit interviews, advertising the role, assessing the applications, conducting the interviews, selecting the applicant, offering the role, completing the paperwork, starting the induction and training the new recruit.

It's just a short blog today, but I must emphasise the point before I go. Every part of your role is determined by decision-making. Even inaction is a decision not to act on a particular issue. The people who work around you will form their opinion of you based on what you do, how you act. It is therefore important that you seek to address issues at the earliest convenient juncture and try to avert situations from becoming things that absorb vast amounts of your time.

And this applies to situations with customers as well. Dealing with potential complaints in a decisive and definite manner will stop them turning into complaints that turn ugly and take up your time. And your customers will appreciate it. For example, if a customer believes that they have been wrongly charged for an item, taking them to the relevant part of the store and going through the pricing with them usually resolved the situation at source, rather than it escalating at the till point into some kind of argument. If this doesn't help, then a course of action to satisfy them is much better than allowing them to walk away unhappy.

Opinion, even fact, can be best judged by debate in retail

I am firmly of the belief that reading expands the mind, and I generally get something out if every book I read. I've just finished a short book on the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's called Thirteen Days and was written by Robert F. Kennedy. The book itself is quite factual and it isn't until I reached the conclusions after the crisis was over that I thought of practical applications towards business. In the chapter "Some of the things we learned..." Robert Kennedy stated that he felt it of significant importance during the crisis that there were different points of view throughout the process. The group of people that sat together to deliberate and report back to the President (the ex comm group) had people from different backgrounds and had different ideas on how to handle the crisis. Robert Kennedy believes that from this group, the right decisions and course of action was achieved because "opinion, even fact, can be best judged by conflict, by debate." He even goes so far as to say that this lack of conflict was part of the failure of an earlier Kennedy administration operation in Cuba - the Bay of Pigs invasion.

In terms of the way this can bring about lessons for business for me, is as far as business decisions are made. Too often one part if the business makes decisions that affect other parts of the business without consulting them. Taking the time to have different viewpoints and for this to provide the opportunity for the decision to be debated can only be healthy. I liken this to the coalition government we have had in this country for nearly the last five years. Although we don't 100% what has happened behind the closed doors of government, it appears from the outside that each party have had to agree on policy. In many cases this has resulted in policy being adapted to keep both parties happy - and for the common good of the country.

The book also reminds me of another book I read fairly recently, called Why Your Boss Is Programmed to Be a Dictator: A Book for Anyone Who Has a Boss or Is a Boss by Chetan Dhruve. It's well worth a read and in one chapter he tells about the mistakes made in the run up to the invasion of Iraq because the military's advisers told their boss (President George W. Bush) what they thought he wanted to hear. More debate would probably have resulted in a different course of action and many fewer lives lost.

Lessons for retail in my eyes will include a level of store representation in head office decisions that affect stores for larger organisations. These decisions may have implications for stores that weren't envisaged but someone from store level can ask these questions and point out these potential issues. This will also have the added advantages that the walls between stores and head office are broken down and that stores have a buy-in involvement in the process.

For smaller retailers, as I know many of my readers are, it can mean involving all of your team and ideally some of your customers in the decision making process. Having this discussion and listening to any dissenting voices before finalising a decision can help you to think of the things you may have missed in your own and to refine the decision so it works best for your team and customers alike.


Not everything can be bought on the High Street

You can have an online offering and not damage the High Street

I was reading this article on the BBC website this morning and it seemed to strike at the heart of the online vs High Street battle-

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30928438

Although it's difficult to fully quantify eBay as a direct competitor to your UK High Street store, there's more than meets the eye in what eBay offers. Established retailers have their own eBay pages where they sell off stock that is discontinued or slow-selling elsewhere. As long as you have a fix on the costs then there is nothing stopping you using the eBay marketplace for any if your products.

I have spoken many times on this blog about the advantages of having an online offering, especially when you offer Click & Collect as the main way of delivery. This gives your customers access to a range that you may not be able to carry in your shop every day of the week. eBay could be an extension to this - carry your full range, offer larger items as collection only and smaller items for postage. Amazon marketplace is another option for sellers of some products.

As well as individual retailers making use of the technological marketplaces offered by these American retailing giants, there is the question brought up about how this competition affects the future if the UK High Street. My blog is based around how I see the future of the High Street. I can see a massive challenge from online, I can see a massive challenge from overseas companies, such as eBay and Amazon, but I can see a bright future if retailers differentiate and if they can make the most out of online.

It's not a direct choice between online or offline, but the two markets will change. The main man at John Lewis has recently said that customers can't go on expecting to have items delivered and pay the same price that they pay in physical shops. This to me seems contradictory, even taking into account delivery costs online must have much less in the way of overheads.

Overall, I think that if you are an individual High Street retailer you can still stand out and be successful. If you differentiate on quality and service and use online to supplement your offering then this will keep your business vibrant and Click & Collect will help keep people coming to the High Street and keep that vibrant as well.

Think about the emails you send out to your subscribers

I received and email today from Amazon, lettings me know about several deals. I scrolled through and saw a deal I found potentially interesting. When I clicked on it, I was taken to a general deals page. I thought I'd clicked wrongly and tried again - the result was the same general deals page. So I tried a different deal - same page. This I found frustrating, and I gave up. Not only did I give up, I won't be clicking through from Amazon emails again. So, what have Amazon achieved from sending this email? I would say, into case, it's had a negative impact. I am probably a similar experience away from unsubscribing.

Which brings me to my point. Please think about the content, links and impact of your communications with your customers, especially emails.

Content

This needs to be as relevant as possible for the people receiving it. If you are a retailer that sells in different categories then you could consider a filter on your email subscribe page. This will mean that, for instance, your baby customers won't get emails about your photographic offering. You want your emails to entice customers to click through to your website and browse. That will only happen if there is something in the content that they want to follow up. You can get tech that will report back to you in what was clicked, and where that led. This will give you the data to ensure that you know what content works and what content doesn't.

Impact

This leads to impact, where the effectiveness of your content triggers the sales of the product or products you are trying to push. The header of the email is the very first thing seen, so ensure that it leads the recipient to read on. A photo or image makes great headway, especially if the product is visually appealing.

Links

Like the Amazon example above, you need to ensure that the links take your customers to the right places. It means that they have the faith in you and your company to click again and to keep subscribed - this is the lifeblood of your direct email marketing campaigns.

The other consideration is the frequency of your emails - not so often that your customers get sick if you, not so rare that they forget you.

Hope this helps.

Understanding gross margin will drive your business forward

Marks & Spencer unsurprisingly followed other retailers in announcing disappointing results this week and, at least partly, blaming it on the weather-

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29911371

I have stated before in my blog that retailers have more than one trick up their sleeves and that cold weather doesn't decimate sales.

Marks & Spencer have now seen 13 consecutive drops in clothing sales, so there's much more to this than just a bit of unseasonal weather. The positive news from this is the increase in gross margin on their products.

If this is at too simple a level them forgive me, but gross margin is selling price minus buying cost. When you improve this, it can enable all sorts of changes to your business that you want to happen. Even if total profits are falling, an increase in gross thin means that you are working less hard for you money. If every transaction through the till brings you more profit every time, then it frees up cost for other expenditure or allows you to put money aside a rainy day.

It all boils down to the fact that you make your money from less transactions, less customers and potentially less staff. All of the time-consuming effort that makesyou  money also costs you money.

Looking at this as an entrepreneurs, you need to look at what profit ypu expect to make on every item you sell. I have seen independent clothing retailers have two sets of numbers in their price labels. The first is the price, the second (in a disguised format) is the lowest price they would consider if a customer wanted to haggle over prices or want a discount for multiple purchases. If you know what you want from each product then you know what products are worth the effort if youskr them yourself, or which products are worth the price at the wholesalers.

It is the start of every other calculation you make for your business and a clear understanding of this will drive your business forward.

Recruiters - cast the net wider

OIt's no secret that I live in the North East of England and I have a bias towards the North East of England when it comes to business and opportunities.

However, I feel that recruiters need to look further afield and cast the net wider when it comes to looking got potential recruits and new talent fof their business.  Even when they are looking for new staff for their London and South East operations, they need to consider a recruitment drive amongst the underemployed masses in other parts I've the country - especially the North East of England.

I have worked with so many people in the North East that could or would walk into a job on any profession in London. It is a sad fact that a huge member of graduates and experienced employees are employed beneath their talents in the North, North East and North west of England in particular.

A government policy to spread the talent across the regions will make a massive difference to each if the regions and the people who live there. A commitment to resolving this North/South divide in jobs and salary will make a massive difference at next year's election.

Unseasonable weather needent mean a huge drip in sales

A short share today - I'm just reading about Next warning that the good weather has hot their sales and cost them a potential £25m in lost profits.

I'd like to point out that Next and other retailers still can make money in good weather as well as bad. They may gave sold off a lot of Summer stock in their last sale but it's unlikely that their customers will have been shopping for swimwear instead of winter coats - the weather hasn't been that good!

Retailers have analysts galore to loom at all sorts of trends from weather to the harvests of the produce they sell, so it's unlikely that the recent good weather will have been totally unpredicted.

The stock that all retailers, especially the local entrepreneurial type I envisage reading this blog, have sat in stockrooms or storage will get its turn when the weather does eventually turns cold (it will, it's the UK.) It's just ensuring that you are ready to trade 100% when this happens.

Stsrt to make sure that you can access this stock at short notice, that it's listed on your main and mobile websites and that it's available now via Click &Collect if not already in store. It's by having these conrngemcies in pomace, and by having great conversations with your customers that you will be in the optim position to reap the rewards when the template is right.

If your retail unit is affected by the weather via what stock you carry, then stay tuned to the medium and long range forecasts, as they can and will give you an indicator of the general trading conditions you are likely to face, and give you pointers on how to react.

Amazon's 13,000 seasonal staff

Looking at how to analyse your company and your competition

I have been looking at different ways to analyse threats to your business, and came across this blog in a similar vein-

http://245daystogo.blogspot.com/2014/10/facing-my-fears.html

There are many ways at deciding what way to take your business forward and the above blog may be one if them. I've worked with many companies and used many ways of deciding which way I'd forward-

SWOT analysis

Competitor analysis

Annual cost reviews

SWOT analysis

This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. And the analysis works straight along those lines. Divide a piece if A4 into 4 and in each section you simply write the Strengths, Weaknesses of your business, and the Opportunities and Threats to your business. From these areas you can formulate your plan. Expand on your strengths, work on your weaknesses, explore the opportunities, mitigate against the threats.

Competitor analysis

This is about looking at the key areas of the business and marking yourself and your competitors objectively. This will give the areas that you need to focus your efforts in. If your competitor scores highly in a particular area then you may need to rethink or redesign how you approach this area.

Annual costs review

I worked with a company that used the annual accounts to prompt a review into spending, and this prompted a review of all aspects of the business based on how spending decisions had influenced the year that had just passed.

For example - "we spent £500 on advertising in the Yellow Pages last year. How much business did this get us?" And from there you would check the referral database to see how much business came from the Yellow Pages, whether this was cost effective and whether it was something that should be repeated.

I like this method for the ability to relate the activity to cost and results, but it feels a little bottom-up in terms of how a company should be run.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to consider where your business is in relation to where you want it to be.

Shop Local is more than just a slogan

Why don't customers in all walks of life choose smaller, independently-owned local businesses to interact with?

Why would you get your coffee fix from a national homogenised chain when there's a local alternative available?

Local companies employ local people, are run by local people who then spend their income locally.  International companies funnel income away from your local area (often in tax avoidance schemes that deprive the UK Treasury of much-needed tax income.). The ethics of major banks, retailers and hospitality companies is regularly brought into question by their mis-selling, corporate governance and tax affairs - so why go global when you can go local?

I would urge all local independent retailers to push this fact in your marketing.

If you are local, live local, send your kids to a local school, spend locally, pay local council tax then you already have an emotional link to the area you are selling your products in and have an empathic link to your local buyers.  You must use this link to forge links with other local businesses and the larger local community.

I would suggest that you source your products from local suppliers wherever possible. If you can supply from your local community then the connection you have with your local community will be much stronger.

Tesco sales drop is about more than price

I'm just reading about Tesco's figures and the fact that their sales dropped by 3.1% over the last quarter - the biggest drop since records began in 1984.

My wife and I were in Tesco yesterday and the problems became more obvious to me as we sat in the café overlooking the store.

The problem is that they get nothing right

Now this isn't an anti-Tesco rant. It's true. Look at the facts-

• They don't do quality as well as Waitrose
• They don't advertise as well as M&S
• They don't do cheap as well as Aldi
• They don't do mobiles as well as Carphone Warehouse
• They don't do cafés as well as Costa
• They don't do toys as well as Smyths
• They don't do tech as well as, well anyone really

This adds up to a poor showing overall. The growth of Tesco has come from the "all under one roof" philosophy but this has come at a price to consumers. The reality of the philosophy is "all in one place, but only 60% as good as if you bought it elsewhere."  The idea of training staff up to be as good as their competitors in each field wpuld take a huge investment. The model of the department store, with market leaders delivering each sector, stands up better than Tesco's current plan.

It is my belief that consumers in the UK tolerate standards that would be unacceptable elsewhere in the World.  For example, I conduct mystery shopping programmes for some major restaurant chains and the question regarding food quality is "was the food rancid or spoiled in flavour?"  Now is this a standard we find acceptable?  In most European countries poor restaurants close because people won't pay good money for something below par.

It's the same with Tesco - customers are starting to find them out. Why pay higher prices for less-informed service on technology? Why buy their Finest range when, for a comparable price, you can buy M&S?

There is a bottom ground for discounters and there are already a few in the market. Why are Morrisons rushing for the lowest price ground? Why are analysts urging Tesco to join them?

A company that ploughed some of their vast profits back into a living wage for their staff, more staff available for customers and a higher standard of service would win every time.

Not everything can be bought on the High Street - MP3 version of The Hunting Party by Linkin Park on pre-order

Chart your promotions and marketing to see how profitable they are

The latest CBI survey shows retail sales growing for the 6th month in a row, but figures weren't as bullish as perhaps expected.

38% of respondents said sales were higher than a year ago

22% of respondents said sales were lower than a year ago

This equates to a balance of 16% - well below the anticipated figure of a 43% balance.  Retailers said they expect business to improve next month with the World Cup and (hopefully) Summer weather.  The CBI said that despite the slowdown, the fact that growth again, for the 6th consecutive month, was encouraging.

What did you experience last month?

What factors influenced this?

My main learning from this is to closely monitor your promotions and see how these impact your sales and profitability.  A simple spreadsheet will do the trick, where you can plot sales and profits against certain promotions with reference to certain times of the year, proximity to payday weekend, weather conditions.  I would say a day-by-day spreadsheet with a space at the end to note external factors will give you all the reference data you need to be able to lamb your future promotions, sales and other marketing activity.  Don't think that your competitors won't have all this information to hand to help their business - it's the norm, even for small stores.

Ensure you act and react like a professional business - the technology is there to assist you in making these decisions and your operation will run better for having the correct information at your fingertips.

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How do you measure your success in the immediacy?

Measuring success

With so many external factors at play in the retail market, how do you measure your success?  Simple sales targets don't always tell the whole story. Staffing shortages, roadworks, parking problems, competitors opening or closing nearby and other factors can have a major influence on your sales but aren't necessarily under your influence.

Inputs as well as outcomes

Your input with your team as a leader is just as important (possibly moreso) than the outcomes. There are many situations I have come across where a store has improved year-on-year and against target, but with little input from the store manager. A good manager will constantly look at ways of improving the store and their team, day by day.

What other measures?

I have been part of focus groups in the past where we have looked at other measures and KPI's to establish a measure of success.  Some include-

• Number of team members progressing to the management programme as a measure of developing your team
• Average basket size as a measure if getting the most out of the customers you already have
• Sales per man hour as a measure of productivity
• How many customers you sign up for your store card as a measure of driving loyalty

A suite of measures

As a rounded retailer, you will have a series of well-thought-out measures to ensure that you are measuring a well-rounded leader. Each measure will inspire your team(s) to achieve the shared goals of your company, and they will be more motivational than a "sales at all costs" target.

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