Greetings Today October 2018 Issue

ON THE SHOP F RONT VIEWPOINT FROM

● Official recognition – the Early Day Motion

AN INDEPENDENT

● Treat time – there’s cake and prizes for customers

Reap the awards ● Winning ways – picking up the trophies

Winning awards is great, as guest columnist Denise Laird from Spirito in Glasgow knows. Here she explains how they not only boost morale but can also be used to promote your business – even if the council seem determined to make life difficult!

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OME retailers we speak to aren’t quite sure what benefits of the various business awards would bring to their business, but here at Spirito we view them very positively.

This year already we’ve had fantastic success after being nominated for, and winning, no less than three retail awards in total.

Firstly, in February, we were awarded Best Gift Shop in Glasgow at the regional heats of Scotland’s Business Awards followed by Bespoke Retailer Of The Year in the Scottish Independent Retail Awards in April and, finally, Best Gift Shop in Scotland at the finals of Scotland’s Business Awards in June.

We consider ourselves very fortunate to have won these awards because the nominations all came from either the public or the judging panels themselves and we know just how good many of the other nominated businesses are.

Awards such as these are very valuable marketing tools for businesses like ours as they often generate media coverage, both local and national, which raises the profile of the shop, and we use them in conjunction with some of our own press advertising to generate additional customer interest in the store.

Following a nomination, we always use the period leading up to the awards ceremony to create a bit of a buzz within the shop itself, with events to generate customer interest prior to the awards – like the delicious cake we had in store – plus prize draws and giveaways after winning to let everyone share in our success.

The ceremonies themselves are also a great way of taking the team out to enjoy a little bit of a reward for all the hard work they’ve put in over the year and we usually book a table so everyone can attend. And the evenings are good for networking and making new friends in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.

A further benefit of winning awards for smaller retailers is that suppliers usually take more interest when we want to discuss becoming potential stockists of their products and it can be used to differentiate our businesses from the many approaches they receive.

The icing on the cake came recently when a letter arrived in the mail in a House Of Commons envelope. It was with some trepidation that I opened it, worrying we were in trouble for something, but I was delighted to find it was a copy of an Early Day Motion that was raised in Parliament congratulating us on our recent success, promotion of small businesses and service to the local community. Whatever happens with Spirito in the future, that will always remain in the permanent records of Parliamentary business.

On an altogether less celebratory note, with all the depressing stories in the headlines concerning the woes of major retailers and news of established chains in trouble on an increasingly regular basis, you’d think local councils would be on the front

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We use the period leading up to the ceremony to create a bit of a buzz

Philip Downer is MD of Calliope Gifts, owner of Front Of Store retail consultancy, an experienced public speaker and the former CEO of Borders bookstores. He writes bi-monthly for Greetings Today with guest retailer columnists taking up their pen in between. T: 01306 889914 www.calliopegifts.co.uk

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foot to try and assist retailers and protect their business rates income.

However, there have been a couple of recent instances in our area that really frustrate me.

The first is that old chestnut – parking. We have bus stops on both sides of the road outside the shop, which worked perfectly well for many years, but they’ve suddenly been doubled in length taking away valuable parking spaces for customers of all the small businesses on the street. I wasn’t buses had doubled in length, or have I missed something!

Secondly we have refuse collection. In response to the few unscrupulous business owners leaving rubbish outside – particularly food waste – in bags overnight where gulls and foxes rip them apart strewing debris across the street, our local council have decreed our waste can only be outside for one hour, 8am-9am every morning with anything uncollected by nine to be taken inside until next collection.

But our shop, like most of the adjacent businesses, isn’t even open at these times so we’ll need to pay someone just to get our rubbish brought in, another unnecessary extra cost.

In a further twist, large bins or dumpsters as used by cafes and larger businesses can no longer be stored on public land such as the footpath so, unless the firm have somewhere private to store their bins, what do they do with it?.

It would be nice, for once, to see councils working with the interests of small businesses in mind rather than just coming up with arbitrary ideas that just cause more problems because they haven’t consulted with those most affected.

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