Retail consultant

Mary Portas on…

On The Kindness Economy

My belief system has always been: how can we create a better and more beautiful world? Back in my early days [as creative director] at Harvey Nichols, I never thought I was selling stuff. I just thought: how can I make this a place where people want to be and enjoy themselves - and then the by-product is that they buy.

I’ve changed my business completely so that I’m working with brands and businesses and saying: how can you be better? How can you make successful businesses that create social progress and give back, to create a symbiosis between people and your businesses? The Kindness Economy is about understanding how we all want to live and creating a new power that’s built on respect and collaboration and built around communities.

Retail consultant Mary Portas gives an insider’s guide to the future of shopping

On Covid

We’ve had two seismic changes in the world. First, we had the pandemic. Now we’re recovering from it, and suddenly we’ve been hit by the cost of living and energy crisis. I’m hoping we will start to see communities and businesses coming together to make change happen because we cannot rely on central government. What the pandemic gave us was a real insight of how that could work: we’ve seen a growth in ‘local’, and a growth in entrepreneurship and people starting their own businesses. We’re also seeing a growth in recycling and upcycling, and I think we’re going to see more collaborative business models like that.

On shop vacancies

I’m sad when I see [vacant] stores like little empty teeth in a mouth on the high street. But what memo did those businesses not get? How come Selfridges and Liberty knew how to succeed? Those days of ‘I’m just going to sell the same s**t as anyone else but maybe a bit lower, and then I’m making my own brand’ are gone, and those businesses were quite frankly boring. But here’s my hope: what I’m seeing come out is better. It’s less retail but it’s better retail. It’s more creative and innovative - and it’s got soul at the heart of it because retailers are taking the risk because they believe in it.

On SMEs

Let’s get behind the SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises]. They are going to be the future and if we can get the government to open their eyes, and local governments putting in social infrastructures that save these places… That’s what came out of Covid. We said we want to go ‘local’. We need this, and the government needs to realise it, because everywhere else is looking at 15-minute cities and asking: how can we create places where you can cycle or walk to get all your needs?

On creating a retail destination

I think there’s a future for what I call concept shops or ‘micro little’ where it’s not just a shop, it’s a taste level that says: I’m going to share. This is my taste and I’m going to edit and curate for your home, your fashion and some lovely gifts. People can go online but they’ll want to come to your shop to hear your opinion, see what’s new, and connect with others. So, the more you can create that ambience with some really lovely touch points - and do in-store what you can’t do online - the more you turn the volume up from that. If a lot of your customers have small children, perhaps put in a play area or have a small gift section for kids, so every time there’s a birthday party, mothers are going to run in - and oh, by the way, they’re going to pass that dress and pass that lovely gift which might stop them on the way.

On pricing

It depends on what your margins are like. My instinct would be to play it by ear and do little random acts of kindness. Chat to customers and if you think that their decision to buy is going to be ‘I can’t afford it, but if you drop 10-20% I could’ and you’re still making money, do it.

And here’s the thing: whenever new restaurants have a soft opening and say, ‘pay what you think it’s worth’, everybody at least pays 10% more, because we are just generous. So when you allow people to be generous, they become really generous, you know?

• Mary Portas was in conversation with Mark Faithfull, Editor of World Retail Congress, at Autumn Fair.