Retail Times Q2 2022

Q2 2022

How to Green Your Business Practical steps to becoming more sustainable

Digital Transformation Pension Legislation Store Profiles HR Advice

Star Quality

How to attract and keep Key Talent

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CONTENTS

SPRING

POWERSCOURT

2022

CASE STUDY

GARDEN PAVILION

IN THIS ISSUE

12 13 18 31 34 36

ADDRESSING IRELANDS TALENT CRISIS Aislinn Lea on increasing the attractiveness of the sector

"Communication was excellent LOOKING TO THE FUTURE throughout the process..."

Powerscourt Garden Pavilion, located in the beautiful 1,000 acre Powerscourt Estate offer an extensive plant selection, outdoor living range and fabulous gifts.

The team at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion understand the importance of counting their stock accurately and efficiently, as a result they decided to outsource the task to Ireland's leading stocktaking business - Stocktaking.ie

Our Journey With Stocktaking.ie

SUSTAINABILITY

22

ON THE GREEN LIST

An industry-first retail initiative to help Irish businesses become more sustainable

Lisa Hardy, General Manager at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion said: "It was crucial for Powerscourt Garden Pavilion to ensure that the company we entrusted with this task were able to come in and complete the stocktake in a professional manner. From the onset, the communication with Stocktaking.ie professionals was excellent. They completed an initial site visit, planned the process for the stocktake which was then executed brilliantly by the team on the day who were very helpful and facilitating."

CASE STUDY

DIGITAL TOOLS

FOR ONLINE GROWTH HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR WEBSITE

To keep customers you need to avoid these common website mistakes

21

POWERSCOURT GARDEN PAVILIONS with Stocktaking.ie

27

CENTRAL SPORTS with Damien O’Driscoll

REGULARS

04

NEWS

REACHING THE TIPPING POINT

Stocktaking.ie who are an ISO accredited company have procedures in place every step of the way to guarantee 100% Accuracy on every stocktake. They complete internal audits throughout the stocktake consistently delivering confidence to their customers. Stocktake Reports were provided on the day and Stocktaking.ie provided an export file for Lisa so that she could have her live stock levels updated to their Retail Integration system.

Businesses are adapting to consumer trends quickly

Lisa said, "We were very impressed with the service provided and look forward to working with stocktaking.ie again in the future."

RECOVERY UPDATE

Looking for support as an Irish retailer post-Pandemic? This is what you need to know (091) 762 001 & SELF-CHECKOUT JUST WALK OUT

info@stocktaking.ie

28 35

Tom Smyth outlines the upcoming changes in pension legislation

The stocktake was completed in less time than anticipated. This was hugely helped by the excellent prestocktake preparations by all the team at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion. As part of the pre-stocktake preparations Lisa and team ensured that all products were labelled and barcoded ensuring that Stocktaking.ie's team were able to scan all the products on the day.

26

ON THE MOVE

33

DIGITAL NEWS

37

SUPPLIER DIRECTORY

ZARA are the latest to install self-checkouts in their Liffy Valley Dublin store

DIGITAL TWINNING

What is a digital twin and how can it enhance retail stores?

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STAR QUALITY

How HR are keeping and attracting retail talent in a postCovid world

Spring 2022 / Retail Times

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Welcome / Update

3

WELCOME

I

t’s been an eventful start to the year! No sooner had we taken the masks off and returned to a feeling of normality than we were thrown into uncertainty and rising prices due to the events in Ukraine.

Trading has been mixed. Many of you have had a good start, customers are out and about buying clothing with occasion wear in particular well up on the same period two years ago.

Equally you are all talking about the challenges, the continuing trends of delayed deliveries of stock, shortage of staff and the rising cost base due to inflation. It’s inevitable this will have an impact on consumer confidence at some point if it continues.

We have started to get out again and have been delighted to host Minister for Retail, Damien English in Limerick, Sligo and Waterford. The feedback has been really positive and has cemented our position as voice of retail within Government circles.

The Government’s strategy on the Future of Retail developed with our partners KPMG is due out very soon and on the back of this, we have been involved in three working groups: The Future of our Town Centres, the Green Transition, Sustainability in Retail and People and Skills.

On People and Skills we have thoughts from the Retail Excellence HR group on page 8 about attracting and retaining talent, a challenge impacting us all since we reopened last year.

I am particularly looking forward to our first event in June which will focus on the theme

of sustainability in retail. The team have been working with leading shopper consultant Sharon Yourell and Claire Cogan, Behavioural Scientist & Researcher, in developing a Retail Guide. This guide will be full of tips on how retailers can improve their sustainability credentials, you can read more about it on page 22.

This will be followed by a Retail Retreat in September, further events in October and our prestigious Awards in November, which returns to Galway this year, will be hosted by Hector and promises to be a great night!

Our Manager Development Programme continues to attract a big audience and this Spring, the delegates were treated to words of wisdom on leadership from former Tipperary hurling manager Liam Sheedy as well as hearing about the Arboretum story from the lady herself, Rachel Doyle. With so many of you now trading online, it was great to see a new E-commerce Manager Programme piloted. We have had some excellent positive feedback on this course.

And finally, I would like to wish you the very best over the coming months. While there may be further challenges ahead, what the last two years has taught us, is that the Retail Industry in Ireland is resilient and has the best retail standards around the world.

Kind Regards, Joe Barrett, Chief Operations Officer, Applegreen Ltd Chairman of Retail Excellence

Spring 2022 / Retail Times

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News / Sector Update

NEWS

SUPPLY CHAIN Aldi signs €100m deal with Kilkenny fruit and vegetable supplier Iverk Discount retailer Aldi has signed a new €100 million deal with Kilkenny-based Iverk Produce to supply 150 stores with Irish-grown and packed potatoes. Iverk, which is one of the largest suppliers of fresh fruit and vegetables in Ireland, has worked with Aldi since 1999, supplying the chain’s Irish stores with carrots and potatoes. The five-year extension of the contract will see it supply 24,000 tonnes of locally grown potatoes to Aldi a year, making up 75% of Aldi’s range of Irish Rooster, Maris Piper, Maritiema, Kerr Pinks, Golden Wonders and baby potatoes.

SECTOR UPDATE INNOVATIVE MOVES

IKEA rolls out personalised design service in Dublin city centre 13

BRAND GUIDELINES

Swedish furniture giant Ikea has introduced a new citycentre-based service that provides customers free, Digitalwith Logo a (Default) personalised one-on-one consultation with a designer to help such as To be used on all digital communications websites, will interactive documents, powerpoint them plan their dream home. Customers be able to talk presentations, social media graphics etc. through ideas for upgrading kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and wardrobes with designers and then order products from the store for delivery. The new service is located in Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre in Dublin. The second such home design service to be introduced by the retailer, IKEA announced its first one in Naas, Co Kildare, in late November.

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Sector Update / News

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Positive Moves PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE H&M chief executive Helena Helmersson set an ambitious goal of doubling the fast-fashion retailer’s sales by 2030 after she reduced discounts and started clearing out the company’s long-standing inventory buildup. Ms Helmersson, who started leading H&M at the start of the pandemic, is also targeting an operating margin of more than 10% within three years. She was brought in to replace the grandson of H&M’s founder in January 2020 and started off by reducing the Swedish company’s store count.

JUDGING THE BOOKS The bookselling sector contributed €9.6 million to the Exchequer in 2021, a record year for Irish book sales in terms of revenue, according to an estimate by economist Jim Power. A report by Mr Power, presented to the annual conference of Bookselling Ireland, found this economic contribution had increased 45% on 2017, with the surge attributed to a rise in sales during the pandemic as readers rediscovered the joy of books. Previously published Nielsen BookScan figures show the value of domestic book sales reached €165.9 million in 2021, up 2.7% on 2020 and was a massive 56% higher than 2013 when annual sales fell to just over €106 million.

ROOM TO GROW Irish retailer Penneys has confirmed plans to relocate to a bigger shop in the Dundrum Town Centre, taking two floors of the former House of Fraser department store. Penneys plans to spend €14.8 million on the new store. It will occupy the second and third floors of the former House of Fraser outlet, which closed in 2020. This will give Penneys 60,000 sq ft of retail space, an increase of 64% on the current outlet in Dundrum.

Holland & Barrett Russian oligarch backers stand down from investor board Holland & Barrett has insisted its operations will not be impacted by sanctions placed on its Russian oligarch backers, who have now stepped down from its owner’s board. Health and wellbeing specialist Holland & Barrett was acquired in 2017 by retail investment fund L1 Retail in 2017, a branch of Luxembourg-based LetterOne, which is controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman. Fridman, along with his business partner Petr Aven, has been sanctioned by the European Union following the invasion of Ukraine because of their connections to Russian president Vladimir Putin. The sanctions include the freezing of any assets the pair hold in the EU, as well as a travel ban.

Lego to open first Irish store in Dublin’s Grafton Street

Ireland is to get its first Lego store, with the Danish brand opening on Dublin’s Grafton Street this summer. The new store will feature Lego’s new retail platform which blends physical and digital experiences in an immersive way, and also allow shoppers to create personalised products.

The store will have a mini-figure factory where visitors can design their own unique Lego mini-figures, participate in free-build challenges and other hands-on play opportunities. It will also feature exclusive 3D Lego models inspired by Dublin and Irish culture.

TAKE OVERS & MERGERS Boots bidders assemble for €8 billion takeover

Bidders for high street chemist Boots are set to meet with bosses as the takeover race intensifies. The sale will mean the breakup of the Walgreens Boots Alliance Suitors for the chain, which has an 8 billion euro price tag, include American private equity firms Apollo and Sycamore Partners, as well as new Asda owners TDR Capital and the billionaire Issa brothers. Buyout consortium Bain Capital and CVC Capital declined to submit a first-round bid. The pair had initially been touted as frontrunners due to the involvement of CVC’s Dominic Murphy who is on the board of Boots’ owners Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA). WBA said “four or five” interested parties are still in the running to take over the business from its American owners.

Spring 2022 / Retail Times

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News / Updates

STAFF ISSUES Next says prices to rise by 8% in autumn amid ‘chronic’ UK staff shortages

H&M launches STEM programme to drive ‘sustainability and style’ H&M has partnered with charity Stemettes to encourage women and non-binary people to get into roles in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). The fashion retailer has created its first STEM initiative with a theme of “sustainability and style”, in which participants will be able to explore STEM’s influence on a sustainable fashion future. Those partaking in this scheme will attend a panel and networking event, hackathon, and receive one-to-one mentoring from STEM role models coming from fields including artificial intelligence, customer-centric technology and product development. H&M said that the programme was a part of its bid to be “both inclusive and diverse,” addressing the issue of underrepresentation of women and non-binary people in STEM.

Green Corner

The boss of Next has called on the UK government to make it easier for workers to come to the UK, as the retailer said staff shortages, as well as disruption from the war in Ukraine, would fuel an 8% rise in its prices this autumn. Next said its homeware prices were now expected to rise by up to 13% and fashion by 6.5%t in the second half of this year, a significant step up from an overall 3.7% increase in prices in the first part of the year.

Simon Wolfson, its chief executive and a prominent pro-Brexit business voice, called on the UK government to “reverse the self-defeating barriers it has placed on overseas workers supporting our economy and accelerate, simplify and reform the planning process to increase the supply of desperately needed housing.” He argued that inflation was being fuelled by “chronic labour shortages” alongside disruption in global supply chains.

AMAZON STOPS PACKAGING PRODUCTS IN SINGLE-USE PLASTIC BAGS Amazon has wiped out all single-use plastic delivery bags across its own distribution network as it ramps up its sustainability drive. The e-tailer has committed to delivering all items sold directly by Amazon, or by third-party sellers using its fulfilment services, in paper bags and cardboard envelopes.

Amazon is also increasing the number of products it sells that can be shipped to customers in their original packaging provided by the manufacturer, rather than being placed inside an additional cardboard box. Amazon said that customers would continue to receive larger deliveries in cardboard boxes.

They also said removal of single-use plastic bags does not apply to thirdparty sellers who ship orders directly to customers and retain control over their own packaging, but they would continue to “share our expertise on more sustainable packaging options and encourage selling partners to use them.”

SHIPPING INTERNATIONALLY? FOR INTERNAL USE

VISIT THE DHL GUIDE FOR ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW TO CONNECT YOUR BUSINESS TO THE WORLD www.dhlguide.ie

Retail Times / Spring 2022

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Celebrating 75 Years In turn key solutions

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People in Retail / Industry Watch

Star Quality

Retail faces increasing challenges in attracting and retaining its key talent in a post-Covid world, but HR departments across the country are doing all they can to ensure they keep star workers with them. Here, we get a glimpse of the challenges overcome and what some have in store over the coming months

Retail Times / Spring 2022

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Industry Watch / People in Retail

JEAN MARTEN HR MANAGER, APPLEGREEN LTD. “Like every business, talent attraction was difficult whilst the PUP payment was available. The PUP applications decreased greatly and we needed to take action,” Jean says. “As we are an essential service, it was key to keep trading throughout so we strongly focused on changing the narrative of working in retail and focused on career roadmaps to support our colleagues and new hires to meet their potential.

We provide a lot accredited training and inhouse management development programs, we made a conscious decision to keep this on track at all times even if parts needed to move to the virtual world. We advertised our benefits, culture, career opportunities in multi-channel places and managed to keep the stream of applications steady. We are a very diverse company and our current workforce is made up of 60+ nationalities, and we feel the diversity will continue to grow as we show the culture of Applegreen is one where everyone matters and everyone can have an opportunity to contribute,” she adds, explaining that keeping diversity will always be a priority. It was tough, she agrees, but there were highlights too.

“While Covid was challenging, I believe our teams rose to it exceptionally – we had so many stories of home deliveries of newspapers and daily essentials to regular customers who found themselves cocooning, to birthday cakes being made and celebrated with customers who lived alone and the stories go on. I feel so proud to work with colleagues who showed sure care and empathy even while some had not gotten home to see their own family in over two years.”

02

9

01

LISA MILWARD HR MANAGER, KILKENNY GROUP “As we transitioned out of Covid, it was important that we supported our colleagues with the relevant changes.

From back to office working, to removal of mask wearing, we did so by collaborating and listening to our people. Attracting talent to our business, particularly on the hospitality side, has been challenging in some locations, given this industry has been largely affected by longer closures and due to a shortage of potential staff. Minding and developing our core hospitality teams is vital to our future success. The last two years of the pandemic have taken its toll on people, both personally and professionally – as HR, it’s important we regularly check in with people, and are there to support people,” Lisa says of her time during the pandemic. “There are a number of areas we look at to attract talent, such as working closely with our recruitment partners, reviewing remuneration benchmarks and the old fashion back to basics of asking our colleagues for referrals if they know anyone looking for work,” she says of trying to hire the right candidates.

“One key thing we did is identify talent internally within the business, by redeploying some of our retail colleagues

01 02

Jean Marten, HR Manager, Applegreen Ltd. Lisa Milward, HR Manager, Kilkenny Group

Spring 2022 / Retail Times

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People in Retail / Industry Watch

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Throughout the Pandemic and now moving into 2022, we continue to stay true to our company values of Trust, Goodness, Knowledge, Recognition and Successat all levels of the organisation.

ORLA COSGROVE HR GENERALIST, NOURISH

Orla Cosgrove, HR Generalist, Nourish Tracey Flanagan, HR Manager, Carraig Donn & Aran Woolen Mills Fiona O’Connor, HR Director, Tom Smyth & Associates

with a hospitality background into some of our restaurants and they loved it. This will be a key focus in 2022 to identify our peoples talents across all our functions that will support future roles, and to crosstrain and cross-develop our people.”

Nourish, the market-leading Training and Development supports available to all and the variety of Employee Benefits provided to support the health, worklife balance and financial wellbeing of our teams. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, we have had the great privilege to support our local communities on the ground, continuing to share our knowledge with our customers about the best wholefoods and natural products to live a healthy life,” she says of the company’s highlights over a difficult period. “We were really proud to open six new locations during the pandemic, enabling us to grow our team and make the best quality natural products available to more people across Ireland.”

ORLA COSGROVE HR GENERALIST, NOURISH Orla agrees that staff retention during the pandemic has been hugely challenging with increased staff turnovers and a shift in absenteeism trends, however, she says Nourish are staying true to their core values. “Throughout the Pandemic and now moving into 2022, we continue to stay true to our company values of Trust, Goodness, Knowledge, Recognition and Success at all levels of the organisation.

We have made a conscious effort in recent months to show potential candidates what makes Nourish a unique and special place to work, be it that we are family-run, or our Irish roots, our approach to customer service and reward and recognition for our fantastic teams,” she says. “We have utilised more fully, our own website and social media platforms to showcase the many career paths available within

TRACEY FLANAGAN HR MANAGER, CARRAIG DONN & ARAN WOOLEN MILLS “We continue to experience an increased number of leavers and recruitment issues, with a reduced number of applicants for roles. And of the applicants, there are many who are under-qualified for the roles or lack enough experience,” Tracey says of talent retention in a post-Covid world. “We are working on our packages offered to the team and reviewing working from home policies for those it can be applicable to, from greater flexibility with regard to hours, late nights, weekends off and so on.” Currently she explains the team is working on a retention scheme through greater engagement for existing employees. “We are looking at ways to engage the existing team through training, communication on offers and a policy we have always had of promotion from within

Retail Times / Spring 2022

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Industry Watch / People in Retail

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“We continue to experience an increased number of leavers and recruitment issues, with a reduced number of applicants for roles. And of the applicants, there are many who are under-qualified for the roles or lack enough experience.”

04

TRACEY FLANAGAN, HR MANAGER, CARRAIG DONN & ARAN WOOLEN MILLS

the company. We are really trying to drive this message to our employees and giving them opportunities to apply for these roles through focused coaching in their current roles.” Over the last 18 months, she says a highlight has been improved relationships across separate teams thanks to online training. “Online training with the stores teams on a regular basis has improved relationships and broken down barriers between Head Office teams and store teams, and a key to this has been the understanding that we are in this together and the importance of working collectively to achieve the same goal.”

in difficult conditions, Fiona says employers should look at the full package of what they offer to employees. “We are certainly seeing Retail, as a sector, pivot to remain attractive to employees in this changed employment market.

Think about your mission statement and involve your team in developing this to foster their sense of connection to your business. What are your core values and how can you communicate this to your teams and to your customers?

Look at the terms, conditions, perks (both financial and non-financial), opportunities, experience, training and

careers you can offer and see where these fit with the values you have identified as representative of who you want to be.

Work to understand what is important to your employees and engage with them.

Employee Assistance Programmes, Mental Health Supports, Health Insurance, Work/Life Balance initiatives, Health & Wellbeing supports benefit employees as well as strengthening your employer brand. Never before has it been so important to stand out, to focus on your brand and become an employer of choice to attract and retain employees within Retail.”

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FIONA O’CONNOR HR DIRECTOR, TOM SMYTH & ASSOCIATES “Regardless of the company size or location, the challenges Retailers face are similar and we see the same pattern of issues across all retail sectors in Ireland – attracting new talent into Retail is harder than ever. As an industry, Retail is playing ‘catch up’ on other sectors with regard to culture, terms, conditions and benefits.

Ongoing high absence rates are putting a severe strain on rosters and increased strain on those available for work. Burn out, morale issues and mental health concerns are prevalent. Recruitment and retention rates are nowhere near pre-pandemic levels as attitudes towards work and life have been altered over the past few years. A cohort of employees have left Retail for one reason or another, with many making the decision to reskill into sectors with the option for remote working,” explains Fiona. To keep talent

Spring 2022 / Retail Times

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Partner Profile / Excel Recruitment

ADDRESSING IRELAND’S

IN RETAIL

TALENT CRISES Aislinn Lea, Director of Fashion & Non-Food at Excel Recruitment talks to Retail Times about increasing the attractiveness of the sector

The trajectory of job postings is consistently going up and employers need to consider making the industry more attractive to workers, or risk facing a severe and damaging staffing crisis in the not-too-distant future.

SO, WHAT CAN EMPLOYERS DO? The first thing employers should avoid is to make the presumption that money is the only solution to the problem. Obviously, wages must be attractive to some degree – people need to be able to maintain a good standard of living from the remuneration they receive in the sector, and salaries need to be competitive. But where we are seeing the real changes are in benefits, employer flexibility, and better working conditions.

ported with free counselling services.

Also, the introduction of statutory sick-pay is coming but it could pay off to look at this area now to entice new or retain staff. Consider bonus or referral schemes for new staff and/or loyalty bonuses. Offerings that relate to employees’ work-life balance such as the Bike to Work scheme, birthdays or extra days off if getting married, etc., are becoming common. In summary, candidates are looking for more, but it’s not just about money – the focus is increasingly about enjoying their career while having time to enjoy their lives outside of work.

ADDRESSING EMPLOYEE BENEFITS Unfortunately, working from home simply does not work in most cases, but there are several incentives that a retail employer can utilise. As an employer, you could ask how you might rejig the working week. Can you offer some weekend and evening flexibility in the structure? The introduction of every second weekend on/off is proving to be very popular amongst some of our retail partners. Annual leave is another area where improvements can be made. We appreciate the statutory working week is 20 days plus bank holidays. However, keeping in tune with work-life balance and the fact that retail requires more flexibility, the need to offer more than 20 days is a must in retail management. We’re seeing a shift to 23-25 days holidays. Employers could consider brand perks and business collaborations. This might include partnering up with other businesses that offer discounts or ‘loyalty perks’ to employees, for example, collaborations with hotel chains, restaurants, or other retailers. A pension scheme is an important benefit that is not necessarily provided by employers. However, we are noticing more businesses reviewing their policy and introducing attractive proposals for employees. Incentives and benefits that focus on employee wellbeing are always attractive, such as an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), where staff is sup-

Contact If you need advice or are looking for a reliable recruitment expert, please contact Aislinn Lea at aislinn@excelrecruitment. com or call 086 807 3544.

Retail Times / Spring 2022

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Pensions / HR

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Auto Enrolment for Pensions

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Tom Smyth outlines the upcoming changes in pension legislation

I

n late March the Government announced further details of the ‘Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System’. While this announcement has been delayed by the pandemic, it is not a surprise as the principles and logic behind such a scheme have been well publicised. The country has to find a solution to a serious pension question coming later in the century. If people continue to retire in their late 60’s they will hope to have a long and healthy retirement, but funding this time from the State Pension alone is not sustainable given the demographics of the population.

Traditionally, the income tax paid by eight workers supported the pension for one retiree. That ratio will be down to 2:1 soon and makes the current model unsustainable.

From January 2024 employers, employees and the State will all contribute to a pension fund which will follow the employee throughout their career. It will apply to employees from the ages of 23-60 who earn more than €20,000 per annum and who are not already enrolled in an occupational pension scheme.

The contribution figures are to increase incrementally over time as per the table below and are capped at an earnings threshold of €80,000

The Central Processing Authority (CPA) is being established to manage the system and work with Registered Providers (RPs). These RPs will be investment providers who will manage four retirement savings funds, ranging from low to high risk, that an employee can choose from.

There are further details such as an opt-out clause for employees where they can leave or take a break from their pension contributions if they wish to. It is some 21 months before this system formally commences and over

Years

Employee

Employer State

2024-2026

1.5%

1.5%

0.5%

2027-2029

3%

3%

1%

2030-2032

4.5%

4.5%

1.5%

2033 +

6%

6%

2%

10 years before the figure of 6% must be provided by both employers and employees. During this time legislation underpinning the system will be drafted and published. The RP’s will be selected via a tendering process and expect much column inches as the finer details and costs of the scheme are worked out.

It is important that employers who do not currently offer a pension contribution familiarise themselves with these changes and factor in the cost of the scheme to their wage budgets moving forward.

Spring 2022 / Retail Times

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Online Toolsl / Cashierless Payment

REINVENTING RETAIL

Brown Thomas recently unveiled Ireland’s most innovative physical retail experience at its new 62,000 square foot store at Dundrum Town Centre

T

he luxurious new store puts customer experience and innovation at the core of shopping with its new approach to fashion with a big focus on rental, resale and restoration services.

This beautiful store offers a new worldclass and diverse shopping destination to Ireland to deliver a retail experience like no other for all customers to enjoy.

The new store showcases the best and most coveted brands across womenswear, menswear, beauty and tech with a destination for gifting, for all occasions.

Donald McDonald, Managing Director of Brown Thomas Arnotts, said: “Brown Thomas Dundrum offers an unparalleled retail experience. It sets new standards in innovation and sustainability for Irish retail. The store builds on the extraordinary customer experience that Brown Thomas is renowned for, combining an unrivalled offer with innovative services for our customers to enjoy. We’re very proud to have developed our new Dundrum store through local Irish collaboration from the ground up, in the design, sustainable build and operations of the store.”

Shoe Rooms will be home to labels such as Mach & Mach, Stella McCartney, JW Anderson, Aquazurra, Gianvito Rossi, Stuart Weitzman, Kurt Geiger, Axel Arigato, Golden Goose and Veja.

Renowned activewear labels lululemon and Sweaty Betty have also launched instore also.

Shelly Corkery, Brown Thomas Arnotts Fashion Buying Director said: “We’re delighted to bring an exciting new retail experience to Ireland and showcase the best luxury and most sought-after womenswear labels, offering a mix of designer, contemporary, denim and activewear brands. Our aim is to continue to inspire our customers with innovative sustainable services including our brand new fashion rental service.”

There is also a men’s lifestyle offering encompassing everything the modern man needs. Exclusive designer brands include Moncler, Stone Island, Paul Smith, Eleventy, BOSS and The North Face. There will be a huge activewear offering with new specialist brands – Arc’teryx, Satisfy Running, Café Du Cycliste and Vuori alongside lululemon.

FASHION

SUSTAINABILITY

The new store showcases the best brands in luxury fashion across womenswear, menswear, footwear and accessories. The womenswear destination houses designer brands including Balmain, Loewe, Dries van Noten, Givenchy, Alaïa, Issey Miyake, Jill Sander, Victoria Beckham, Moncler and Stella McCartney. Isabel Marant, Alessandra Rich, Jacquemus, Acne and Zimmermann, will also be in the mix.

Much sought-after handbag and accessories labels also includes Stella McCartney, Givenchy, Mulberry, JW Anderson, Ganni and Marc Jacobs. The

Brown Thomas Dundrum storel embraces conscious consumerism with offers such as rental, resale and restoration across ready-to-wear, handbags and accessories.

These include: • Rent It! is a new fashion rental service that allows customers to rent special, luxurious ready-to-wear pieces and accessories, curated by Brown Thomas’ buying team, this new service will showcase an unrivalled mix of style options for special occasions and events.

• Full Circle enables customers to bring their pre-loved handbags in-store

where they can be exchanged for a Brown Thomas Gift Card.

• Circular Fix extends the life of customers’ designer and investment pieces, encompassing handbag restoration, shoe repairs, trainer restoration and dry cleaning.

• ‘Beauty Cycle’ is an exciting sustainability initiative where customers can recycle beauty empties and receive Brown Thomas loyalty points for each deposit made.

BEAUTY The impressive new beauty hall at over 12,000 square feet is Brown Thomas’ biggest beauty hall and is be a unique destination, aiming to revolutionise beauty shopping and deliver an unrivalled beauty offer of prestigious beauty brands and extraordinary beauty services.

Triona McGinley, Brown Thomas Arnotts Beauty Director said: “We are proud to launch our beautiful new Beauty Hall, Planet Beauty and Beauty Lounge destinations. We are delighted to reveal a whole new shopping environment and retail concept for the way our customers experience, discover and shop beauty.

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Brown Thomas / Openings

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is a new customer experience offering IV vitamin drips, IV injections, booster shots and instant vitamin C and D testing and bespoke consultations to provide tailored beauty packagers for each customer.

The Apartment ‘The Apartment’, a first of its kind in customer experience, themed as an apartment living area it offers customers a designated sanctuary space, removed from the main shopping areas, that creates a relaxed environment to combine socialising and shopping. Able to accommodate up to ten visitors, the apartment can be reserved during shopping hours and customers can book beauty services, masterclasses, brand presentations, private fashion shows and personal shopping sessions.

Tech & Pop-Ups The store showcases a brand new innovative products from world’s leading tech brands such as Apple, Bang & Olufsen, Sonos, Samsung, Sony, Fitbit, Bose and Dyson. From wearables to one-wheelers the offering will include the new unagi brand range of scooters spearheaded by Iggy Pop. The Dundrum store also welcomes a series of pop-ups and launches with OneMoreThing, a collection of beautiful dried and preserved flower bouquets and decorations. The Reuzi pop-up is a curated one-stop shop with affordable zero waste versions of everyday essentials, making it more convenient to go green.

Edition Café

“Within the hall, we incorporate an exciting new beauty concept, Planet Beauty, home to a carefully curated edit of 60 sustainable, cutting-edge and consciously created brands in beauty and wellness. A team of skincare experts will be on hand to offer individual expertise to customers, be it finding the best plantbased products to align with vegan values

or for those who favour scientific active ingredients, Planet Beauty is a beauty and skincare lover’s paradise of discovery.”

The new Beauty Lounge will be home to a world-class salon experience, with exclusive treatments that include manicures, pedicures, brow and lashes and hand-picked products for customers. A retail first for Brown Thomas, Get A Drip

Edition Café offers shoppers a welcome respite. Championing small Irish suppliers and growers, customers will experience delicious seasonal food served up in soft botanical surroundings by the Kemp Sisters. There will be monthly events for Brown Thomas’ community of customers, kicking off with fermentation classes and talks on gut health with The Cultured Club’s Dearbhla Reynolds and sleep expert, Lucy Wolfe will host a workshop on promoting better sleeping habits for babies. There will be mid-week and all weekend brunch menus, plus Mini Edition menus for kids.

Brown Thomas has also worked exclusively with a cohort of Irish artists including Ciara O’Neill who will be the Brown Thomas Dundrum first artist in residence. Ciara was specially commissioned to create unique pieces and will host her own in-store exhibition.

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New Store Profile / The Body Shop

SUSTAINABLE STORE FIXTURES

EVENT SPACE UPSTAIRS FOR PRODUCT LAUNCHES

GRAND OPENING

THE BODY SHOP

11 Grafton Street, Co. Dublin

The Body Shop is putting the spotlight on its longstanding green ethos with the Irish launch of its newest retail format on Grafton Street

FULLY REFILLABLE STATION

GIFTING STATION

360-DEGREE TEST & WASH STATION

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27/04/2022 16:00

Search for your perfect .ie domain

Take your business further with a trusted Irish online identity

Register your business online as .ie .ie is the preferred online address for business in Ireland. 91% of Irish consumers associate .ie websites with Irish businesses and 77% prefer a .ie website when buying online.

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.ie / Online Sales

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Hybrid shopping will be the default

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Hybrid models of work are becoming the norm and the same is true of the way we shop - we enjoy the experience and the convenience of instore shopping while simultaneously valuing the ease and speed of e-commerce. SMEs that provide the best hybrid shopping experiences seamlessly link their physical shop with their digital presence, such as their website and e-commerce store. They may use novel technologies, such as AR, to further enhance this experience. However, despite pandemic trends showing a preference for a convenience-first hybrid shopping model, just 10% of the SMEs we surveyed regard the fuller integration of their physical shop with their online premises, and vice versa, as a priority digital investment area over the next five years.

Sustainability investors will win hearts

TS

Covid has accelerated many of the emerging consumer trends and behaviours that we observed in 2019, forcing businesses to adapt the way they operate, communicate and sell.

OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS, .IE HAVE EXAMINED IRELAND’S CHANGING ATTITUDES TO E-COMMERCE AND DIGITAL BUSINESS.

Sustainability, clean energy and large-scale international moves towards net zero emissions will dominate corporate and government agendas throughout the 2020s.

Much of this will be driven by grassroots activism. Almost 80% of Irish consumers say that it is ‘very’ or ‘somewhat important’ that the product or service they order online is produced and delivered in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

Among younger Millennials, this figure is an even higher 90%. However, just 4% of SMEs said that providing some kind of digital proof to consumers of a sustainable or environmentally friendly supply chain was a priority digital investment in the next five years. Because Irish SMEs are more likely to operate on a smaller, less globalised scale, they have an inherent advantage in this space versus international retailers. Business owners can prove their sustainability credentials by partnering with local producers, collaborating with environmentally friendly suppliers, and creating content that brings these stories to life.

Prepare for cash irrelevance Cash as a means of transaction has been in steady decline for a number of years, but pandemic lockdowns and concerns around hygiene, as well as the Government’s decision in 2020 to increase the maximum contactless payment limit to €50, has accelerated this trend. Sixty-two per cent of consumers say they are using cash ‘significantly’ or ‘slightly less often’ since the beginning of the pandemic. When asked about their typical use of cash, 16% said they do not use cash for any purchases, while 41% said they used it for purchases under €10. Just 22% used it for purchases above €50. Surprisingly, this decline is universal among all age groups - and the least cash-friendly are the eldest. While cash may be an attractive short-term solution for smaller businesses, it is clearly in decline as a viable platform for long-term business growth.

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Online Sales / .ie

.IE TIPPING POINT 2022 Cybersecurity is non-negotiable In an era of high-profile cyberattacks, consumers place value on the integrity of their personal data. 75% said they were ‘very’ or ‘somewhat concerned’ about the security of their personal information when shopping online, a trait shared broadly by all demographics.

However, the majority (62%) of Irish SMEs either take no special steps to secure personal data or don’t know how to. Just 15% confirmed the use of basic but effective measures such as a firewall or antivirus, and only 11% the use of two-factor authentication. Only 4% have trained staffed in cybersecurity best practice. This is dangerous.

We know from the HSE ransomware attack in 2021 that a small error, linked to a lack of employee awareness of common cyberthreats, led to a prolonged paralysis of critical State infrastructure. Similar incidents within businesses are increasingly common. While it might be tempting for an SME to postpone expenditure on anything that doesn’t have a measurable impact on the here and now, a cyberattack can be devastating and lead to permanent destruction of customer trust. It is the duty of SMEs to protect their customer or user data. Through national and EU legislation, such as the Data Protection Act and GDPR, businesses that shirk this are likely to find themselves subject to penalties.

For more on how you can make your business more sustainable See page

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KEY FINDINGS

CONSUMER LOCATION 45% of consumers plan to do most of their shopping in-store this year, although this figure drops to 29% among Millennials. 16% of all consumers say they plan to do most of their shopping online, rising to 33% among Gen Z. SMEs need to be cognisant of different shopping preferences and trends among digital natives.

GLOBAL COMPETITION Consumers continue to view international retailers as more competitive on price and range of products, but Irish businesses are viewed as more trustworthy, more reliable and with better delivery services. SMEs should concentrate on leveraging these USPs.

SECURITY Most consumers are highly cybersecurity conscious. 75% are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat concerned’ about the security of their personal information when shopping online.

However, as many as 6-in-10 SMEs either do not take any precautions to protect sensitive customer data or do not know how to.

DIGITAL WALLET When considering future online shopping innovations, consumers are most interested in paying for goods and services via a digital wallet (30%), followed by subscriptions to preferred retailers (24%) and deeper augmented reality (AR) experiences (19%).

SME GENERATING SALES SMEs increasingly view websites as dynamic sales enablers or points of sale, not just static information pages. 72% said their website was important in generating sales, up from 66% in 2021.

INVESTING IN ONLINE Half of SMEs have invested in their online presence since the start of the pandemic, resulting in improved sales. Among investing SMEs, 30% are busier than they were before the pandemic and 36% have been able to maintain the same level of business.

CASHLESS PAYMENTS A quarter of all SMEs and just over a third of businesses with 1-5 employees still accept cash payments only. However, 62% of consumers say they are using cash less since the pandemic began. Nearly 2-in-10 consumers do not use cash at all.

FUTURE PROOFING Just over half (54%) of SMEs are planning a significant digital investment in the next five years, with most focusing on launching a new website, improving their existing one, or building a dedicated app.

Spring 2022 / Retail Times

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POWERSCOURT

CASE STUDY

GARDEN PAVILION

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Stocktaking.ie / Case Study

"Communication throughout the

CASE STUDY

Powerscourt Garden Pavilion, located in the beautiful 1,000 acre Powerscourt Estate offer an extensive plant selection, outdoor living range and fabulous gifts.

The team at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion understand the importance of counting their stock accurately and efficiently, as a result they decided to outsource the task to Ireland's leading stocktaking business - Stocktaking.ie

P

STUDY POWERSCOURT "Communication Stocktaking.ie with excellent Our was Journey WithCASE Stocktaking.ie GARDEN PAVILION Lisa Hardy, General Manager at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion throughout the process..." said:

POWERSCOURT GARDEN PAVILIONS

owerscourt Garden Pavilion, located in the beautiful 1,000 acre Powerscourt "It was crucial for Powerscourt Garden Pavilion to ensure that Estate, offers an extensive plant the company we entrusted with this task were able to come in selection, outdoor living range and fabulous Powerscourt Garden Pavilion, located in the beautiful 1,000 The stocktake was completed in less time than and complete the stocktake in a professional manner. From gift s. Th e team at Powerscourt acre Powerscourt Estate offerGarden an extensive plant selection, anticipated. This was hugely helped by the excellent prethe onset, the communication with professionals Pavilion of outdoor understand living rangethe andimportance fabulous gifts. stocktake preparations by all theStocktaking.ie team at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion.

As part of thean pre-stocktake was excellent.

They completed initial sitepreparations visit, planned the counting their stock accurately and efficiently, ensured that all products wereexecuted labelled andbrilliantly Theas team Garden and a resultat theyPowerscourt decided to outsource thePavilion understand the process Lisa forand theteam stocktake which was then barcoded ensuring that Stocktaking.ie's team were able to importance counting their stock accurately and Communication efficiently, was excellent task to Ireland’sof leading stocktaking business by the team the day who were very helpful and facilitating." scan the products on the day. as a result they decided to outsource the task to Ireland's throughout theallon process - Stocktaking.ie leading stocktaking business - Stocktaking.ie

Our Journey With Stocktaking.ie

Our Journey With Stocktaking.ie

Stocktaking.ie who are an ISO accredited company have procedures in place every step of the way to guarantee 100% Accuracy on every stocktake. They complete internal audits throughout the stocktake consistently delivering confidence to their customers. Stocktake Reports were provided on the day and Stocktaking.ie provided an export file for Lisa so that she could have her live stock levels updated to their Retail Integration system.

Lisa Hardy, General Manager at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion said: “It was Lisa Hardy, General Manager at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion crucial said: for Powerscourt Garden Pavilion to"Itensure the company we entrusted with Pavilion to ensure that was crucial for Powerscourt Garden this task were able to come in and complete the company we entrusted with this task were able to come in andstocktake complete stocktake in a professional manner. From the in the a professional manner. the onset, the communication withwith Stocktaking.ie professionals From the onset, the communication Powerscourt Garden Pavilion, located in the beautiful 1,000said, The stocktake completed in less with time than Lisa "We were was very impressed the service was excellent.

They completed anacre initial site visit, the plant selection, Powerscourt Estateplanned offer an extensive anticipated. This was hugely helped by the excellent preStocktaking.ie professionals was excellent. provided and look forward to working with stocktaking.ie outdoor living range and fabulous gifts. stocktake preparations by all the team at Powerscourt process for the stocktake which was Th ey completed an initial site visit, planned then executed brilliantly Garden Pavilion. As part of the pre-stocktake preparations again in the future." by the team on the day who were The very helpful and facilitating."

Lisa and team ensured that all products were labelled and team at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion understand the the process for the stocktake which was then barcoded ensuring that Stocktaking.ie's team were able to importance of counting their stock accurately and efficiently, scan all the products on the day. as a result they decided to outsource the task to Ireland's executed brilliantly by the team on theleading day stocktaking business - Stocktaking.ie Stocktaking.ie who are an ISO accredited company have who were very helpful and facilitating.” The procedures in place every step of the way to guarantee Our Journey With Stocktaking.ie stocktake was completed in less time than 100% Accuracy on every stocktake. They complete internal audits throughout the stocktake consistently delivering anticipated. This was hugely helped byLisa theHardy, General Manager at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion confidence to their customers. Stocktake Reports were said: provided on the day and Stocktaking.ie provided an export excellent pre-stocktake preparations by"It all was crucial for Powerscourt Garden Pavilion to ensure that file for Lisa so that she could have her live stock levels the company we entrusted with this task were able to come in the team at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion. throughout the stocktake consistentlyupdated to their Retail Integration system. and complete the stocktake in a professional manner. From the onset, the communication withdence Stocktaking.ie professionals As part of the pre-stocktake preparations, delivering confi to their customers.Lisa said, "We were very impressed with the service was excellent. They completed an initial site visit, planned the provided and look forward to working with stocktaking.ie Lisa and team ensured that all products provided on the dayagain process for Stocktake the stocktake Reports which waswere then executed brilliantly in the future." by the team on the day who were very helpful and facilitating." were labelled and barcoded ensuring that and Stocktaking.ie provided an export file Stocktaking.ie’s team were able to scan for Lisa so that she could have her live stock info@stocktaking.ie (091) 762 001 all the products on the day. Stocktaking. levels updated to their Retail Integration ie, who are an ISO accredited company, system. “We were very impressed with have procedures in place every step of the the service provided and look forward to way to guarantee 100% accuracy on every working with stocktaking. ie again in the stocktake. They complete internal audits future,” Lisa said.

"Communication was excellent throughout the process..."

info@stocktaking.ie

(091) 762 001

Spring 2022 / Retail Times

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Survey / Sustainability

ON THE GREEN LIST

In an industry-first, a new retail sustainability initiative, Sustainable Irish Retail Action (SIRA) has been launched in conjunction with Retail Excellence, to support Irish businesses to take practical steps in becoming more sustainable. To help understand how the retail community is feeling when it comes to sustainability, a research survey was conducted within the retail sector. Supported by Vodafone, TapCreative, and Champion Green, SIRA will aim to give retailers practical support to help them embed more sustainable business practices

R

etail is a huge business, the third biggest sector in Ireland, contributing €30 billion in total sales, and employing 280,000 people across the country.

When we think of the modern shopping experience for customers, sustainability is a natural thread within that – and it is one retailers across the country are keen to embrace. But taking steps to become a more sustainable retail business presents its own challenges.

SIRA is the brainchild of Sharon Yourell Lawlor, Managing Director of Think Plan Do Consulting, and Claire Cogan, Managing Director of BehaviourWise. Sharon is a shopper and retail marketing strategist, and Claire is a behavioural scientist and researcher. Both have worked with both

suppliers and retailers over many years and have come together to support the retail industry in meeting the sustainability challenge.

“We all know how important sustainability is. To put it bluntly, our planet is in trouble, and we’ve got to make changes to our lifestyles and choices,” explains Sharon. “There are many consumers with a clear desire to lead a more sustainable lifestyle. But the issue is that if you do not make it accessible, simple, and affordable for those consumers to shop in a more sustainable way, making it easy for them to go into retail stores, and navigate sustainable choices on their purchase journey, you

won’t get shoppers to buy into sustainability.”

As a first step for the initiative, a survey was launched to gauge retailer views. “It was important to us that we began by listening to retailers themselves,” explains Claire. “We were delighted that we received over 230 responses. We’re conscious that the last two years have been very difficult for retailers because of the pandemic, and that they continue to face a lot of challenges at the moment. We wanted to understand where sustainability sits on their radar, and how they feel about it in the context of everything else that’s going on.”

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Sustainability / Survey

The survey, conducted with the support of Retail Excellence and Champion Green, was seen as necessary to understand how the retail industry felt as a whole about sustainability. Ultimately the research findings will inform the development of a guide for retailers to follow as they plan their own sustainability journeys.

“We have many retailers telling us, ‘I know I need to make my business more sustainable. But with other pressures, I haven’t had the time. I haven’t had the expertise, the knowledge, or the confidence to actually be able to embrace this,’” says Sharon. This is where SIRA’s guide will support retail businesses, as it helps retailers identify key pillars they need to have in place in-store to implement a workable sustainability model.

“There’s lots of supports available to the retail community. We are setting out to help retailers understand this topic more, to educate them, give them support and signpost to some of the supports that are out there. It’s about sharing best practices on sustainability initiatives around

people, planet, and prosperity already happening in the retail environment so that others can learn.”

A key finding from the survey is that retailers are highly motivated to meet the sustainability challenge. “When we asked them to score their motivation out of 10, the average score was eight. That’s pretty high,” says Claire. “And it gives us cause for optimism. Despite the challenges, retailers are motivated to take this on and do their bit for the environment and the sustainability agenda.”

Importantly, many have already acted: 67% have communicated to their customers about sustainability initiatives they have undertaken over the past year, and 81% intend to do so over the coming year.

Other actions taken include 58% switching to more sustainable suppliers and 55% challenging existing suppliers to provide more sustainable options.

One-in-two retailers have developed a sustainability action plan and 73% intend developing a sustainability action plan over the coming year.

23

Sharon Yourell Lawlor, Managing Director, Think Plan Do Consulting

“We have many retailers telling us, ‘I know I need to make my business more sustainable. But with other pressures, I haven’t had the time. I haven’t had the expertise, the knowledge, or the confidence to actually be able to embrace this.’”

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Survey / Sustainability

RETAILER ATTITUDES

1

Retailer Buy-In Is There: 80% agree it’s important for their business to be seen as sustainable. 71% say that their business is prepared to do all it can to become more sustainable. 65% claim sustainability is a central part of their business strategy. 59% believe their business is already doing all it can to be sustainable.

2

Retailers Will Adapt To More Sustainable Offerings: 77% believe they will need to offer more sustainable products and services in the future. 73% buy from local Irish suppliers wherever possible.

When it comes to retailer attitudes to sustainability:

3

Retailers Are Looking For Support: 75% believe their suppliers have a responsibility to provide them with more sustainable products and services. 57% believe it’s primarily the Government’s responsibility to tackle climate change and promote sustainability.

4

Retailer Scepticism: For 39% of retailers, making their business more sustainable is not a top priority over the next 1-to-3 years.

31% believe that any actions they take to be more sustainable won’t make any difference.

Nervous But Optimistic

SIRA

MISSION STATEMENT

Supported by Retail Excellence, Vodafone, TapCreative, and Champion Green, SIRA will aim to give retailers practical support to help them embed more sustainable business practices.

“On the other side of that, you have many retailers who have gone on the journey, but they’re not necessarily communicating all of their initiatives for fear of scrutiny and accusations of greenwashing,” Sharon explains. “There is a sense of wanting to wait until things are 100% right which actually means that many shoppers don’t realise some of the good work being done already by the retail community around sustainability.”

Although 9 out of 10 retailers feel they have a good grasp of what sustainability means, a sizable minority say they are not clear on the meaning of certain terms often used in conjunction with sustainability.

This points to a need for education.

Yet reassuringly, despite the challenges of the pandemic, businesses are feeling optimistic overall with 3 out of 4 retailers

5

Retailer Cost Concerns: 59% believe that trying to be as sustainable as possible will cost their business money.

While 54% believe their customers would be willing to pay more for more sustainable products and services (allowing them to recoup higher costs).

feeling upbeat about their business prospects going forward. They are also keen to embrace sustainability. “What’s clear from the survey is that retailers are concerned about the effects of climate change,” explains Claire. “Based on the results, 85% say they’re concerned from a personal perspective and 74% are concerned about the potential impact it could have on their businesses.”

A Helping Hand Overall, there are areas where retailers are clear they understand what needs to be done. These include ‘supporting Irish, local and community’, ‘sourcing product and merchandise’ and ‘tackling waste and recycling’, but they also need a helping hand.

“There are areas such as ‘build and retrofit’, ‘appliances and systems’ and ‘supply chain’ where implementing more sustainable practices requires a certain amount of skill or expertise, and this is where retailers are telling us they need more support,” explains Claire. “The supports may be out there, but retailers may not necessarily know about them or find them easy to access.”

The survey reveals what retailers want most is assistance in managing the cost of becoming more sustainable (particularly given the rising costs of doing business), information about financial support and a one-stop-shop portal where they can find out what they need to know.

Seventy-five per cent believe their suppliers have a responsibility to provide them with more sustainable products and services while almost 60 per cent believe

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Sustainability / Survey

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RETAILER SENTIMENT IS GOOD

While Times Have Been Tough, Current Retail Sentiment Is Good.

64% of people expect that their business situation will improve over the coming 12 months Retailers Feel Upbeat & Optimistic About Their Future 3 out of 4 retailers are feeling upbeat about their business prospects. 1-in-2 say they’re feeling optimistic

it’s not all on the retailer and that it’s primarily the Government’s responsibility to tackle climate change and promote sustainability.

“Our aim is to start to build momentum and support and conversation around sustainability,” Sharon continues. “We want to make sure that what’s available out there in terms of support is really fit for purpose for retailers.”

“When we see how motivated retailers are to make their businesses more sustainable, we know they’re up for the challenge. We want to help them get there. The important thing is to help them get started, and guide them along the journey,” adds Claire.

And that, both Sharon and Claire agree, is very simply how any sustainability journey can start for retailers.

By accessing SIRA’s guide which will be launched in June, and which will contain information, easy steps to help with implementation and advice on support, the key takeaway is it’s important to start on the journey.

“Ultimately, SIRA is about creating a practical guide for retailers to help them go on that journey and to navigate the touchpoints,” Sharon says. “And it’s also about creating community conversations so that we can get more retailers out there feeling comfortable to talk about sustainability with each other and with their shoppers. It’s saying here’s how the community currently is feeling, so let’s understand that and let’s work to improve this.”

RETAIL SURVEY

KEY FINDINGS

Sustainability:

74%

Concerned about the effects of climate change on their business

When it comes to Climate Change, Retailers Are Concerned Both Personally & Professionally About Its Effects When asked how motivated they feel on a scale of 1 to 10, the average score is 8. This indicates quite a high level of motivation among retailers to make their businesses as sustainable as possible.

Priorities:

When it comes to the areas which retailers see as most important to address (either essential, high priority or medium priority), the top 5 pillars are: 1. Product & merchandise (98%) 2. Waste & recycling (96%) 3. Supply chain (95%) 4. Supporting Irish, local & community (95%) 5. Staff & practices (91%)

96%

Planned Action

Actions taken

The top 3 actions which retailers have taken to date are: 1. Communication to customers about sustainability initiatives (67%) 2. Switching to more sustainable suppliers (58%) 3. Challenging existing suppliers to provide more sustainable options (55%) 1 in 2 retailers have developed a sustainability action plan to improve their business sustainability.

However, there are key areas where less than half of retailers have engaged to date: • Provided staff training on sustainability (48%) • Conducted an energy efficiency audit (45%) • Sought information on supports available from the SEAI, other state agencies or banks (42%)

There is high motivation for communicating sustainability initiatives to customers

81%

of retailers intend communicating to their customers over the coming year about what their business is doing to become more sustainable.

73%

intend developing a sustainability action plan.

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Retail / On The Move

IRISH

RETAILERS

ON THE MOVE

Regatta – two new stores in Blanchardstown SC & Netgrove Shopping Centre Bringing the total to 27 standalone stores

Lululemon opened on 84 Grafton Street & downstairs in Brown Thomas Dundrum Shopping Centre

Party Delights have opened their second Irish store in Mahon Point Retail Park

Butlers Chocolates Opened its 25th Irish store in the newly redeveloped Blackrock Shopping Centre

Fraser Group are opening a Flannels store in the newly refurbished Clery Quarter, followed

by Cork City & Blanchardstown Shopping Centre

€14.8m

Zara opened a new flagship store in Liffey Valley SC

Russell & Bromley are opening in the former Fitzpatrick Shoes store at 76 Grafton Street

KRISPY KREME ARE OPENING ITS THIRD STORE IN THE NEW CENTRAL PLAZA BUILDING ON DAME STREET Movrs – A new shoe concept store opened in the former Jack Wills unit opposite the Westbury Hotel

Penneys are moving to a new 60,000sqft store in Dundrum Shopping Centre at a cost of

Pret a Manger are opening its first Irish store in the former Starbucks store on Dawson Street

Pamela Scott Opened its largest store on the Main Street in Gorey Sky have opened a brand-new concept store in Blanchardstown Shopping Centre

Brown Thomas opened their new state of the art store in Dundrum Shopping Centre

Lego are opening in the former Topman store on 41 Grafton Street

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Central Sports / Case Study

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CENTRAL SPORTS

S E C T O R S P O R T S R E TA I L

OVERVIEW Central Sports founded in 1997 by Tom Whelan, is an independent family-run retailer based in Clare. A top supplier of leading sports brands and equipment, Central Sports cater for an extensive variety of activities including soccer, GAA, sailing, and equestrian. Central Sports also provide custom team and workwear for local groups and businesses.

HOW CENTRAL SPORTS GOT ONLINE & SEAMLESSLY STARTED GROWING SALES WITH POSITIVE SOLUTIONS

BEFORE Before working with Positive Solutions, the systems at Central Sports were fragmented with disconnected processes, leading to more manual work and opportunities for human error.

Store Name:

DURING Positive System Solutions worked closely with Tom and his team to provide a unified solution, seamlessly connecting their eCommerce website and other sales channels into their EPOS system.

AFTER Since implementation, Central Sports has gone from strength to strength. With measurable increases in margins and efficiencies, business operations are now streamlined and proficient meaning more time on the shop floor selling and generating revenue. Online and in-store sales have increased by 55%.

Central Sports

Store Address:

20a The Square, Kilrush, Clare V15X528

Managing Director: Tom Whelan

TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTED • Retail Management Hero - EPOS Solution • Ecommerce Integration – Websell • Automated Shipping Processing – label printing direct from POS • Modern Mobile Suite – Handheld technology WHAT ARE THE COMPANY GOALS FOR THE FUTURE? Tom and his team continually work hard and invest to provide excellent customer service.

They focus on building a community around their store and expanding local relationships. Central Sports emphasise implementing retail technology as this makes their job and processes easier and more time efficient. Tom thanks the Local Enterprise Office in Clare for their resources which helped fund and grow his business. Post-covid Tom has his sights on international markets hoping to increase online sales and expand brand awareness and sales in the UK, Europe, and Australia.

DAMIEN O’DRISCOLL, Positive Systems Solutions

It was and continues to be a pleasure to work with Tom and his team on this project. Tom has a very strong strategic vision of growth for his business. Looking at the results Central sports have achieved, their strategy in conjunction with consultation and technology solutions delivered by Positive System Solutions, Central Sports has achieved exceptional growth both online and in-store.”

Positive Systems Solutions Ltd www. pss.ie, 01 6120821

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eCommerce / Online Growth

Tips

FOR ONLINE GROWTH

1

E-commerce KPIs - Less is MORE When trading online,

Keelan Bourke, Head of Commercial with Retail Excellence shares the Key Learnings From Our Recent E-commerce Manager Development Programme It’s been two years in the making! We wanted to give members the tools to supercharge their growth online.

To do this, we created the E-commerce Manager Development Programme, that involved technical sessions from leading industry experts as well as real-life ecommerce members sharing their experiences. Here are 10 key insights that we have taken away from the programme so far…

you have the advantage of being able to drill down and track stats across every aspect of your store. The feedback we gained is to focus on two to three key metrics from day one and work on improving them. For those new to E-commerce, you could start with tracking sessions and how to drive more people onto your new store. If you are more established, you could review your store speed and particularly the pages that have the highest bounce rate on your store.

3

Work with Relatable Influencers We had a great

2

Email Marketing is still The Highest Converting Channel

Since the onset of Apple IOS14, zero-party data is the most important currency. Building your email database with customers names, sizing, brand favourites give you the opportunity to interact with them in a more meaningful way. Segmentation is crucially important.

The days of sending one blast email to all subscribers is gone. Onsite quizzes are recommended as the best way to build your customer profiles. Automations such as a welcome series, abandon cart, post-purchase and subscriber re-engage series were all highlighted as key email automations.

session around social media marketing and working influencers to build your online presence. The key takeaway is to research the influencers in-depth. Ask for their follower’s gender break down. If you are targeting a female audience but your influencers followers are a high percentage of males then its not going to be effective. Be crystal clear in your agreement with them – time, date, numbers of posts, links, wording etc. Look to build long lasting relationships in order to blend your products into their life.

4

Apply Lean Management to your Entire Upload & Fulfilment Process One

member saved 300 hours a year by writing down every step of their upload and fulfilment process, and then stripping it all back and automating as many steps as they could. What initially took 50 steps, they got it down to 15 steps after two years of focusing on making the entire process lean.

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Online Growth / eCommerce

5

Increasing your Retention Rate is Vital You have a 25%

chance of getting a first-time buyer to buy a second time from you online.

This jumps to a 50% chance to buy a third time, and so forth, until they reach a tipping point of six orders. This is when, on average, they become a loyal customer and need only a gentle push to rebuy. It’s worth tracking your retention rate and looking to improve it every month. Its more cost effective to nurture previous customers than acquire new ones.

7

Improve your Site Health

A point reiterated by many speakers was to constantly watch the overall health of your site.

There is a tendency to plugin more and more apps to your site. This can bloat the code and cause it to slow down significantly. Run a google page speed insights test to gauge your speed score. Set up a free account with SEMrush to give you feedback on wider site issues.

You can analyse 100 pages for free which will give you a good idea of where to start with improving your site health.

8

Enhance your USPs On Site The key advantage

of Irish online stores is that they don’t have deal with Brexit red tape. Many of our members speak about consistently trying fulfil and dispatch same day so that it can reach the customer the next day.

Emphasise this USP on your site.

Emphasise that you are an Irish business with local jobs. Emphasise that your customer service levels are excellent and fast. Many speakers mentioned using Zendesk to manage queries from all platforms in the one place (email, Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc).

6

Product Mix: Focus on Category A Products One of

our members shared that when they started online, they had over 6,000 products with over 17 variations of a single niche product. In the second year, they cut it to 3,000 products, and the third year they cut it to 1,700 products. By the third year, they were still selling more by focusing on the core bestselling items. This gave the team more time to create videos, create post purchase explainer/set up tutorials and bundling them together with other bestsellers to drive conversion. As Irish retailers, we have a tendency to overstock in case we don’t have what someone is looking for. Your online store needs to be clean, well categorised and focused. This focus on category A products will help improve your conversion rate.

29

9

Look Ahead to New Trends Augmented reality has

been applied by some members on their online store. A key question in the mind of the potential customer is how will the product look on me or in my home? Take shoes for example - with the use of augmented reality, you can answer that question and boost your conversion rate. Klarna has recently launched in Ireland to offer buy now pay later, with already huge customer adoption around the world, it’s important you offer the easiest checkout method to the customer.

10

Continuous Investment

A key message delivered by our panel of speakers is that you can’t sit back once the website is built.

The business needs to invest in its people. You can outsource a lot of the marketing initially, but long-term it is optimal to bring it in house. One large online member spoke about how they have four Ecommerce Managers in house! Spend money on building your traffic from Google PPC & Shopping, Instagram Ads & influencers. Create amateur and professional video content on your never out of stock products. Install tablets in store at the till point, create a Google form and ask customers to enter a draw to win a voucher by subscribing. Overall keep pushing, online sales are a like a snowball being pushed down hill, it will get bigger with time and effort!

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For what’s next in a net zero world.

Together, we’ll help you respond to the climate agenda.

Ads.indd 1

19/04/2022 15:25

Covid-19 / Finance

CLAIRE DAVEY, DIRECTOR, KPMG IRELAND

31

RECOVERY UPDATE Recent updates on COVID-19 Supports for Irish Retailers

T

he various COVID-19 Support schemes have been a lifeline for many retail businesses badly hit by the pandemic and have been instrumental in supporting job retention amid difficult trading conditions.

The Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) will, for the majority of businesses, cease operation the end of April 2022. Given this finally marks a return to normality for payroll operators, now is an ideal time for retailers to take stock and begin to prepare for life after the scheme. Revenue will continue to carry out their ongoing EWSS compliance checks after the scheme has ended, so it will be important for retailers to have a comprehensive, robust file in place to support their eligibility under the scheme.

Furthermore, a number of temporary employment tax concessions introduced at the early stages of the pandemic have recently been withdrawn and so, it will now be important for Irish retailers to familiarise themselves with these changes to ensure they are not relying on COVID-19 concessions which are no longer available in practice.

Key supports introduced to deal with the severe impact of the pandemic at a time where retailers’ cash reserves were under severe pressure included the Tax Debt Warehousing Scheme. This arrangement allowed businesses to park certain unpaid PAYE and VAT tax debts that arose during the period when a business’ ability to trade was impacted

by COVID-19 related restrictions for a period of 12 months after a business resumed trading.

Essentially, with regards to the repayment of warehoused tax debts, zero interest will accrue until the end of 2022 (or until 30 April 2023 for businesses impacted by the public health restrictions introduced in December

2021). Following the expiry of the zero interest period, a rate of 3% per annum applies thereafter.

Following a recent Revenue update, retailers who are still availing of the scheme are advised that Revenue will shortly be contacting them to remind them that their warehoused tax debt remains unpaid on an interest free basis until the end of 2022 or 30 April 2023 as applicable. Revenue will also remind businesses, they can at any time prior to this, repay some or all of their warehoused debt. Recent Revenue statistics show that many businesses have already made some repayments in this regard.

Revenue will also be reminding employers that their obligations under the terms and conditions of the scheme includes the filing of current tax returns as they fall due and payment of associated tax liabilities at the appropriate time.

Businesses who fail to meet these conditions will no longer be eligible to participate in the scheme with immediate effect. In this eventuality, the tax debts of the business fall due for payment immediately, and the significantly reduced 0% and 3% rates for warehoused debts will no longer be available.

Retailers will also be advised that all outstanding tax returns need to be filed before 30 April 2022 or they risk losing the benefits provided under the scheme.

In light of this update, retailers who continue to experience difficulties in meeting their filing and payment obligations, are encouraged to contact Revenue at the earliest opportunity to resolve these difficulties and discuss the possibility of putting in place a tailored payment arrangement over an agreed timeframe.

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Digital News / News

DIGITAL

NEWS

Shopify warns of online slowdown despite soaring revenues. Shopify has

warned that the likely absence of a “Covidtriggered acceleration of ecommerce” in the first half of 2022 looks set to impact revenue growth. Shopify’s total revenue for the 2021 full year reached $4.6bn (£3.38bn) – a 57% increase from 2020. Gross profits rose 61% from 2020 to $2.4bn (£1.77bn). Fourth-quarter revenues also surpassed analyst expectations, reaching $1.38bn (£1.01bn) compared with estimates of $1.33bn (£0.98bn), according to Refinitiv data. Despite these results, Shopify warned that its revenue growth would slow down in the first half of this year due to factors such as a slowdown in the ecommerce boom recorded during the pandemic and the removal of government stimulus, as well as rising inflation. As growth slows, Shopify will also attempt to diversify its business model, moving beyond creating tools for companies to quickly sell online.

Klarna and Gamestop partnership expands to offer virtual shopping. Swedish fintech Klarna is expanding its partnership with video game retailer Gamestop to include virtual shopping and faster checkouts for Irish customers. This will be the games retailer’s first foray into virtual shopping, which will connect customers with in-store experts at Gamestop, giving them access to live product advice over chat and video calls, real-time reviews and recommendations. Gamestop already offered Klarna’s buynow-pay-later services to customers, with the “pay in 3” product that gives consumers the option to split the cost of purchases in three interest-free, fee-free equal payments. The expansion will allow customers to log into their Klarna account to access express checkout and additional security protections.

Irish online shoppers see biggest jump in customs charges, survey finds. Ireland

recorded the largest jump out of 40 countries in customs charges attached to online shopping last year, according to a new survey. The research from the International Post Corporation (IPC), found the proportion of Irish purchases hit with extra taxes jumped from 7 per cent to 29%. The surge came as a result of Brexit and reflects the continued dominance of British-based retailers in ecommerce in the Republic, according to the IPC. Its annual Cross-Border E-Commerce Shopper was conducted among 33,000 consumers in 40 countries worldwide, accounting for 93% of the global e-commerce market.

33

Ocado unveils ‘game-changing’ suite of online grocery tech innovations Ocado has unveiled a new suite of technological innovations that boss Tim Steiner says “have literally shattered through existing rules” around grocery home delivery. In a recent livestream broadcast, Steiner unveiled seven new technological innovations to its Ocado Smart Platform (OSP), which he believes will be “gamechanging” for the retailer and the future of grocery delivery and “shatter the tradeoffs… between choice, lead times and value.”

Their first tech was the new 600 Series bot, which Steiner said was the “lightest and most efficient” grocery fulfilment robot in the world. The new OSP means lighter robots and the 600 grid and optimised design, which enable Ocado to build lighter grids.

This will significantly reduce the time and costs associated with developing a new customer fulfilment centre (CFC).

INTEGRATED CASH PAYMENTS FROM GLORY Optimise the cash flowing through your stores every day

All that time you spend managing your cash is now yours again. With a Glory device to count the cash, you don’t have to. No more counting floats, EOD reconciliation or losses at POS. Find out how easy it is to set up GLORY’s integrated cash payment solutions in your store(s):

Call: +353 (0)1 5713990 | Email: sales@ie.glory-global.com | Visit: www.glory-global.com/ireland

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Online Toolsl / Cashierless Payment

Self-Checkout &

JUST WALK OUT Technology Continues To Grow Zara recently opened their largest and latest concept store in Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, Dublin

C

ustomers will now be allowed to purchase clothes straight after they try them on with new self-checkouts installed at the exit of the fitting rooms to offer the utmost convenience. This is to speed up the checkout process and drive efficiency. Customers will be able to avail of an automated pick-up point to collect online shopping orders in a matter of seconds. Self-checkout has been around for quite some time, but in recent years, we have seen it grow into pharmacy and now fashion. This will be an interesting trend to monitor in terms of usage.

Furthermore, we have recently seen, The Compass Group along with Flutter Entertainment (Paddy Power) launch a checkout free convenience store in their HQ. According to The Compass Group, the “truly friction-free shopping experience” will see customers ‘check in’ when entering and then freely wander through the store,

selecting from the food items at their leisure. Once inside, computer vision cameras anonymously track the shopper, adding selected items to the virtual shopping cart. No facial recognition or biometrics are used, ensuring privacy.

Across the UK, Aldi and Tesco have both launched trial stores with walk out technology for customers. Amazon being the pioneer of this technology has the first mover advantage and has further applied it to their first Whole Foods Store in the US. Amazon is pressing ahead with launching new locations with this technology in the wake of closing all its physical retail locations that carried books, electronics and other non-grocery products.

What does this mean for Irish retail?

There will be a continuing divergence toward convenience or experiential retail.

Irish retailers will need to decide what type of consumer experience they want to provide. Can they provide a choice? If consumers are just popping in quickly for an item after work on their way home, they could use self-checkout tills. If consumers want a weekend experience, they can interact with the team members in store and decide on their choice of products after their recommendations.

The level of advancement in camera technology continues to develop at rapid speed each year. Many modern cameras that retailers install as CCTV can now track your footfall numbers as well. Walk out technology may seem like a pipedream for many Irish retailers at the moment, but as technology advances, it’s important that you are constantly keeping up to date with your EPOS provider, payments provider and website provider as they will all be working towards the next stage of retail development. Seek out a roadmap from them. Many of the EPOS providers can be hosted on different hardware options.

Many of the payment providers can provide different types of payment terminals and the major E-commerce platforms can now be hosted in store. Always be mindful of your options and don’t be afraid to host a call between all your providers.

Irish retailers will always be renowned for their customer service and this will continue to ring through as a point of difference into the future. But one must be mindful that the customer may value having a team member on hand to offer them advice rather than stuck behind a large checkout desk. Being able to offer flexibility into the future will be a key objective for progressive retailers and and one worth keeping an eye on.

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Evaluation / Online Tools

35

Common Mistakes Businesses Make With Their Online Channel

1 2

Not checking your own experience: When was the last time you bought something from your own online store to see what the user experience is from start to finish?

Not knowing your website conversion rate: You would be surprised how many don’t have this figure at their fingertips.

Not knowing this key metric means you can’t measure the effectiveness of any marketing spend.

Assuming people come straight to your home page: This may not be the case, they may come to a product listing page because they find it when they search online.

Are you presenting other ranges and upselling them to browse further? How many pages are visitors looking at? What is the user journey from arrival to departure?

Not asking website visitors what they think of your website: Recommendations are a key factor for parents in the buying decision. You need to ask visitors and customers for feedback, good or bad, so you have those recommendations there for everyone to see, but also so you can answer and fix the negatives too.

3 4

How to Measure

Usability surveys are an excellent way to check what the visitors to your website think about the experience they have. For Mykidstime. com, the website that connects us to our highly engaged parent community, we have carried out annual website usability surveys for several years now with Userneeds.com and find them invaluable. Constantly talking to your consumers is a critical part of this process.

C

learly COVID and lockdown rapidly accelerated the move to online shopping and put the emphasis firmly on retailer websites. Now that the dust has settled, reviewing your online channels regularly is essential. We carried out research with parents, a key shopper demographic, and they told us: • They are continuing to shop in a hybrid way.

• They want to support Irish businesses. Conscious consumerism is the term we are seeing parents refer to more and more.

• Stock levels are an issue. Parents expressed frustration at finding a product on a website only to find poor or outdated stock levels.

• They research before they buy. Parents say they research online before committing to buy, especially for bigger ticket items and services.

How well do you know your . .

WEBSITE Why Retailers Need to Measure Website Effectiveness

Tips for Retailers

1. Begin with the basics get to know your Google Analytics account and key metrics intimately.

2. Keep a measurement document with key metrics updated at least monthly so you can spot an issue immediately.

3. Carry out a usability study and where gaps are identified, make sure to drill into these to find out not just the “what” but also the “why” so you can make informed changes to your website on an ongoing improvement basis.

4. Ask for reviews, recommendations and feedback at every stage of the user experience.

5. Set aside a time each month to discuss the website and sales with your team asking key questions around what is working, what is not and what do we need to do to fix it.

JILL HOLZ PARENTSANDBRANDS ParentsandBrands are offering Retail Excellence Ireland members a discounted rate on a special package using in-depth consumer insights designed to help optimise your website, mention Retail Excellence Ireland when booking to save 20%. For more information visit www.parentsandbrands.com/ retailexcellenceireland

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Digital Transformation / Digital Twinning

DIGITAL

DIGITAL T R A N S F O R M AT I O N

TWINNING

What is a digital twin and how can it enhance retail stores?

have been carried out. The findings have been put together into a highly accurate AI programme to replicate how people react to things, such as: Layout, Colours, Signage, Branding, Typography.

These scientist-backed findings help you to test changes based on the predicted outcomes of people’s reactions, and to determine which decisions are best for your retail store, appropriate to your target market.

USING 3D VISUALISATION TO INFORM DECISION-MAKING AND BOOST SALES, a digital twin refers to a digital replica of a real-life item. It’s a virtual copy of any physical thing, exactly to scale in 3D using virtual reality technology. It’s a way to imagine the finished outcome and check for any potential design flaws. 3D visualisation helps to design many products in today’s world - but a digital twin takes things to the next level. By combining objects and their context, such as display fixtures with products inside retail stores, create a full visual environment and feel as if you’re there.

HOW CAN RETAIL STORES USE A DIGITAL TWIN? Having a digital twin is not a brand-new concept. Some industries, such as architecture and construction, have been using digital twins for years. It’s common in large projects with high production costs, like models for aeroplane or bridge designs. You can test new ideas, without the physical costs of manufacturing. But there are ways having a digital twin can benefit your business, going further than just models. They can hold intelligent data, helping you to predict

the outcome of your ideas and inform marketing choices. Stacked uses digital twin technology with retail clients to make big decisions easier. Trial your exciting new ideas for marketing, sales, new fixtures, and layout plans. Predict what will work before investing and boost sales.

A digital twin can help you to: • Make fast decisions by seeing changes in real-time • Collect intelligent data and learn how your audience reacts • Invest time and money in the right places, testing new ideas first YOUR DIGITAL TWIN CAN GROW OVER TIME WITH AI TECHNOLOGY Use artificial intelligence (AI) technology with your digital twin to add useful data. AI will become more intelligent as it learns from itself, developing with each use. Think of your digital twin as a small child... Beginning with simple tasks, observe with anticipation as the child learns and grows. The more times you use data with your digital twin, the quicker it will become valuable. Realworld data, taken from top scientists, has been collected and thousands of tests

PRODUCT BENEFITS Top benefits for store 360-scanning and digital twins: 1. Improve your customer experience by reviewing and surveying stores sooner and quicker with this product. Saving the store to and from travel time, while reducing your carbon footprint.

2. Planning and reappraising the design of the store can be a costly timeconsuming task, and by having your stores externally and internally digitally captured, showcasing in the ‘as-built’ condition can saved time and money across the company.

3. Store your spaces online, so all the team can freely access each one of your stores as and when you want and explore the retail space whatever the weather from home or office.

4. Better financial decision-making: A virtual representation of a physical retail space has the ability to integrate key data. The availability of a large amount of real-time data and advanced analytics enables businesses to make better and faster decisions about whether or not adjustments to a manufacturing value chain are financially sound.

Keith Hanley Head of Sales, Digital Communications, 0818 40 99 88, keith.hanley@stacked.ie

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Denotes RETAIL EXCELLENCE CORPORATE PARTNER

SUPPLIER DIRECTORY

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Suppliers Directory

Star Category Of Company

Company

Account Manager

Contact Information

Address Capture Software

GeoDirectory www.geodirectory.ie

Dara Keogh

+353 (0) 1 705 7005 info@geodirectory.ie

Sociolocal

SocioLocal www.sociolocal.ie

Nicole Stevenson

+353 (0)1 240 2580 nicole@sociolocal.ie

Audit, Tax, Advisory & Consulting Services

KPMG www.kpmg.ie

Niall Savage

+353 (0)1 700 4141 niall.savage@kpmg.ie

Audit, Tax, Advisory & Consulting Services

Grant Thornton www.grantthornton.ie

Damian Gleeson

+353 (0) 61 607 993 damian.gleeson@ie.gt.com

AV & Digital In-Store Services

Quest Systems www.questsystems.ie

Damien Stout

+353 (0)1 419 9199 Damien.stout@questsystems.ie

Branding, Store Design, E-Commerce

Bradley Brand and Design www.bradleybrand.ie

Andrew Bradley

+353 (0) 86 258 4368 andrew@bradleybrand.ie

Branding & Retail Design

TAP Creative www.tapcreative.ie

Niamh Higgins

+353 (0)1 541 4664 niamh@tapcreative.ie

Branding & Signage Solutions

3Rock www.3rock.ie

Patrice Murphy

+353 (0)1 457 0188 patrice@3rock.ie

Broadcast Media

Sky Media Ireland www.skymedia.ie

Gareth Genockey

+353 (0) 1 614 7611 gareth.genockey@sky.ie

Business Training, Coaching & Mentoring

Action Coach Business Coaching www.actioncoachireland.com

Paul Fagan

+353 (0) 1 891 6220 ireland@actioncoach.com

Cash Handling Solutions

Glory www.glory-global.com

David O’Meara

+353 (0) 1 467 0542 david.omeara@glory-global.com

Cash Logistics Services

GSLS www.gsls.ie

Paul Cahill

+353 (0) 87 133 6000 pcahill@gsls.ie

Consumer Market Research & Training

Customer Perceptions & Optimum Results www.customerperceptions.ie

Emma Harte

+353 (0) 42 93 39911 emma.harte@customerperceptions.ie

Contract Cleaning

Cleaning Contractors www.cleaningcontractors.ie

Turlough O’Brien

+353 (0)1 296 3036 turlough@cleaningcontractors.ie

Creative & Print Services

The Smart Group www.thesmartgroup.ie

Tom Ryan

+353 (0) 86 780 1626 tom@thesmartgroup.ie

CX Solutions

SAP www.sap.com

Kevin Purcell

+353 (0)87 434 8508 kevin.purcell01@sap.com

Digital Marketing Agency

Core Optimisation www.coreoptimisation.com

Caroline Dunlea

+353 (0) 86 086 2840 caroline@coreoptimisation.com

Digital Marketing Agency

Wolfgang Digital www.wolfgangdigital.com

Brendan Almack

+353 (0) 1 663 8020 brendan@wolfgangdigital.com

Digital Signage

Screenvend www.navi.ie

Louise Doherty

+353 (0)85 878 9757 louisedoherty@navi.ie

Digital Signage

Focal Media www.focalmedia.com

Maurice Muldoon

+353 (0)1 2934040 maurice@focalmedia.com

Digital Signage

Stacked www.stacked.ie

Keith Hanley

+353 (0)86 145 1903 keith.hanley@stacked.ie

Domain Name Registration

.IE www.iedr.ie

Registration Services

+353 (0) 1 236 5400 registrations@iedr.ie

Ecommerce Agency

StudioForty9 www.studioforty9.com

Ger Keohane

+353 (0) 21 239 2349 ger@studioforty9.com

Ecommerce Agency

Ireland Website Design www.irelandwebsitedesign.com

Nick Butler

+353 (0)51 325 567 nick@irelandwebsitedesign.com

Ecommerce Advisory Services

BDO www.bdo.ie

Conor Mac Manus

+353 (0)1 470 0535 conor.macmanus@bdo.ie

Ecommerce Content Management System

Styla www.styla.com

Lee McDermott

+44 (0)79 5800 3481 lee@styla.com

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Suppliers Directory

Star Category Of Company

Company

Account Manager

Contact Information

39

Ecommerce Platform

Shopify www.shopify.com

Lauren Helstab

lauren.helstab@shopify.com

Ecommerce Platform

Shopware www.shopware.com

Heike Zellerhoff

+44 7379 233034 H.Zellerhoff@shopware.com

Electronic Security Solutions

Convergint www.convergint.com

Stephen Carbery

+353 (0)1 836 5538 stephen.carbery@convergint.com

Employee Workforce Management Solutions

Timepoint www.timepoint.ie

Colin Ryan

+353 (0) 1 406 7610 colin@timepoint.ie

Energy Advisory Service

Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland www.seai.ie

Sara Norris

+353 (0)1808 2121 sara.norris@seai.ie

Energy Services

Exemplar Energy www.exemplarenergy.ie

Jonathan Fitzpatrick

+353 (0) 87 276 8778 jonathan@exemplarenergy.ie

Energy Services

Pinergy www.pinergy.ie

Colm Foley

+353 (0) 1 524 2825 colm@pinergy.ie

EPOS Solutions

K3 Retail www.k3retail.ie

Mark Bryans

+353 (0) 1 820 8321 mark.bryans@k3btg.com

EPOS Solutions

Positive Systems Solutions www.pss.ie

Damien O’Driscoll

+353 (0) 1 6296058 damien@pss.ie

EPOS Solutions

Retail Integration www.retail-int.com

Patrick Heslin

+353 (0) 1 429 6800 patrick@retail-int.com

EPOS Solutions

CBE www.cbe.ie

Oliver Sheridan

1890 373 000 oliversheridan@cbe.ie

EPOS Solutions

Eirpoint www.eirpoint.ie

Niall Cannon

+353 (0) 65 686 8880 ncannon@eirpoint.com

Footfall Counting, Digital Signage & Loss Prevention

Detectag Retail Services www.retailservices.ie

John Dempsey

+353 (0) 86 243 7100 john.dempsey@retailservices.ie

Gift voucher and Gift Card Solutions

FromMe2You Gift Card www.me2you.ie

John Wall

+353 (0) 87 666 6795 John.wall@me2you.ie

Global Payments & Foreign Exchange Risk Management

Corpay www.corpay.com

Finian Brett

+353 (0)87 666 6795 fbrett@afex.com

Graphic Design, Printing, Delivery

Sooner Than Later www.soonerthanlater.com

Mark Finney

+353 (0) 1 284 4777 mark@soonerthanlater.com

Hotel, Conference Venue

Crowne Plaza Blanchardstown www.cpireland.crowneplaza.com

Carol Byrne

+353 (0) 86 201 8997 carol.byrne@crowneplazadublin.ie

HR Consultant

Tom Smyth & Associates www.tsaconsultants.ie

Tommy Smyth

+353 (0) 21 463 4154 tommy@tsaconsultants.ie

Human Resources Solution

Strandum Ltd www.strandum.com

Brendan Carney

+353 (0) 1 899 1900 bcarney@strandum.com

Insurance

FBD Insurance www.fbd.ie

Patrick Carey

+353 (0) 86 815 4193 Patrick.Carey@FBD.ie

Instalments

Mastercard www.mastercard.com

John Wheeler

John.Wheeler@mastercard.com

IT – Domain and Hosting Services

Blacknight www.blacknigh.com

Michele Neylon

+353 (0) 59 918 3072 michele@blacknight.com

IT Services

Objectivity www.objectivity.co.uk

Tony Rothwell

+44 779 502 3225 trothwell@objectivity.co.uk

IT Solutions & Security

Radius Technologies www.radius.ie

Jerry Buckley

1890 592500 jerryb@radius.ie

Label Solutions

IMS Labels www.imslabels.ie

Steven Burke

+353 (0) 1 295 4544 steven.burke@ims.ie

Licence Exempt Music Provider

Image Sound www.imagesound.com/background-music

Phil Randle

+44 (0)1 246 572 997 service@imagesound.co.uk

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Suppliers Directory

Star Category Of Company

Company

Account Manager

Contact Information

Legal Advisory

Sherwin O’Riordan www.sor-solicitors.ie

James Sherwin

+353 (0)1 663 2000 jsherwin@sor.ie

Logistics

DHL Express www.dhl.ie

Ciara Hynes

+353 (0) 86 197 0085 Ciara.hynes@dhl.com

Logistics

DPD www.dpd.ie

Patrick O’Loughlin

+353 (0) 906 420 500 salesdpd.ie

Mystery Shopping, Store Assessments

Crest Mystery Shopping Ireland www.crestireland.com

Michele Cawley

+353 (0)86 814 5004 michele@crestireland.com

Payment Solutions

AIB Merchant Services www.aibms.com

Mark Patterson

+353 (0) 86 189 3681 Mark.Patterson@aibms.com

Payroll Services

Paycheck Plus www.paycheckplus.ie

Niall Clarke

+353 (0)1 4198 92100 nclarke@paycheckplus.ie

Personal Wealth Management

Davy Group www.davy.ie

Kevin Doherty

+353 (0) 1 614 8778 kevin.doherty@davy.ie

Personalised Retail Packaging

Barry Packaging www.barrypackaging.com

Eamonn Barry

+353 (0) 87 263 9487 eamonn@barrypackaging.com

Personalised Retail Packaging

Delpac www.delpac.ie

Charlie Curran

+353 (0) 66 947 9298 charlie@delpac.ie

Personalised Retail Packaging

JJ O’Toole www.jjotoole.ie

Vicki O’Toole

+353 (0) 61 229 333 info@jjotoole.ie

Print and Design

Kingdom Printers www.kingdomprinters.net

David Keane

+353 (0)66 712 1136 dave@kingdomprinters.net

Recruitment

Excel Recruitment www.excelrecruitment.ie

Barry Whelan

+353 (0) 1 814 8747 barry@excelrecruitment.com

Recruitment

Teamworx www.teamworx.ie

Amy McGlynn

+353 (0) 45 898037 amy@teamworx.ie

Retail Lighting Specialists

Pro-Light Design & Technology www.pro-light.ie

Paul Hanlon

+353 (0)1 2962607 Paul.Hanlon@pro-light.ie

Risk Management Solutions

Seachange www.seachange.ie

Paul Cummins

+353 (0) 87 052 24 95 paul.cummins@seachange-intl.com

Shopfitting and Retail Design

DDC Group www.ddcshopfit.ie

Ashley Gardiner

+353 (0) 1 401 3050 ashley@ddcshopfit.ie

Shopfitting and Retail Design

Johnston Shopfitters www.johnston-shopfitters.com

ShaneBrennan

+353 (0) 86 244 0714 sbrennan@johnston-shopfitters.com +353 (0) 1 419 0419 ajohnston@johnston-shopfitters.com

Shopfitting and Retail Design

Store Design www.storedesign.ie

Declan McKeever

+353 (0) 1 413 1350 d.mckeever@storedesign.ie

Specialist Entrance Matting Provider

Footfall www.footfall.ie

Ger Halloran

+353 (0) 86 235 3515 ger@footfall.ie

Stocktaking Service

Stocktaking.ie www.stocktaking.ie

Sharon Kelly

+353 (0) 86 389 9542 sharonk@stocktaking.ie

Stocktaking Service

TakeStock www.wecount.ie

Bernard Brown

+353 (0) 1 77 55 242 bernard.brown@wecount.ie

Video Production and Graphic Design

Another Avenue www.anotheravenue.com

Sharyn Mitchell

+353 (0) 1 660 1588 sharyn@anotheravenue.com

Andrew Johnston

Retail Times / Spring 2022

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The Government’s Cycle to Work Scheme • Help to implement and promote this great flexible benefit to staff • bikes2you manages the scheme rules for the employer to ensure compliance • A simple user-friendly paperless application process, only a mobile phone is required • Your employees visit their partner bike store and request a quotation • The bikes2you employee portal will guide them through the entire process • Automatic electronic invoicing for one or multiple bikes when you want it, with a PO number if required • Full company management reports available online Ads.indd 1

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ai164726142810_Radius RT Cyber Sec Ad 03_22_PRINT.pdf

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