Over The Counter

BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE. 2023 will be upon us by the time you read this and if Nostradamus’ predictions ring true then we are going to be faced by a number of challenges. He predicted a great war, a great fire and economic disaster! Some would argue that two out of the three have already happened and they don’t look like they are easing anytime soon. Lots of happiness and fun to look forward to then!

New If only we could predict the future, we would all no doubt change things dramatically. Beginnings...

Nostradamus’ infamous book Les Prophéties was first published in 1555, long before we had the keyboard warriors and social media doctors, but if you read into his broad claims you could find hints to Hitler’s Reign of Terror, the 9/11 terrorist attack and many other horrific events that have been tentpoles in our recent past.

He even predicted a desperate politician may try to save his career by entering a jungle, but no one believed him about that!

So, should we all stay in, lock the doors and not come out? The problem with that is we did that during Covid and life was pretty dull.

Indie retailers and card publishers have never really laid down and admitted defeat. We are a resilient lot who work on the assumption there is always another birthday, wedding, baby or bar mitzvah. 2023 should be the year that business and life returns to normal. In 2019 we first heard about an illness in China and then in the months and years to follow no-one could have predicted what would happen. Not even Nostradamus.

Covid seems to have put the last two years on fast forward and I am tired of fighting to get fair treatment for retail businesses.

Sadly, we are not sexy. We are not a spaceport or a free port or indeed any kind of port. We don’t tick the boxes for tourism and we don’t make a major enough ripples in our community to warrant access to lots of the pots of money available.

Here in Scotland we are waiting on announcements around business rates (which are back in full), tourism tax and many other policies that continue to make it hard for people to trade.

Every High Street from Aberdeen to Zouch seems to be in need of saving. Lots of money is promised, lots of ideas are put forward and there is lots of initial enthusiasm but as the work gets harder and the time pressures get more onerous it ends up as the same band of people fighting to try and improve for all.

I am one of that band - with less time than ever but, somehow I can’t just walk away.

I love retail. I love my business and ultimately, I must love the pressure because doing something else would, definitely be easier.

So, what’s my business focus for Jan 2023 and beyond? What do I want to achieve in the year ahead and just exactly where I am going to start?

Without doubt my biggest weakness in my business is that I overbuy stock and I also find it hard to say “no” to certain reps and agents with whom I have dealt, over many, many years.

I need to use January as a chance to purge myself of lots of stock.

This has meant for the first time in business I have not committed to pre-sell or new product. I want to wait and look at it fresh over the course of January.

I also really want to look at the mix of cards in our control and again consider what changes are needed.

Adding in new publishers, changing the mix and generally tweaking things is good not only for sales, but for the soul.

There are so many good publishers out there it is time that I looked beyond my tried and tested ones a bit more. The

Right: Is the answer to what indies should do in 2023 in Les Prophéties?! Below: French astrologer Nostradamus had quite a knack for predictions.

only problem, is that my customers love certain ranges, and many of the cards that I love don’t appeal to my customers.

The next focus on my list is our website. I love the look of it and love the way it is set up, but we simply made a mistake with what we tried to do retail wise.

As many of you will know we all tried to make the online side of things work during Covid, as we felt it could be our only real outlet, but our shops (indie gifts and cards) are not easy to replicate or represent online.

We are all about the ever changing stock. We are all about the new companies and most of us don’t buy in items in bulk. In fact, most small indie stores don’t have EPOS as we change things so often that adding and removing items would take more time than makes sense.

Online retail is like a whole other store and you can get sucked into it without seeing the reward. My plan now is to pick one category line that we can really push. I will then put on the proper stock and social links and see if that works. We have started this and have seen some progress. If we can get it working better and see a decent return in sales, I may then look to add another product category, building staff commitment and stock as we go.

I have spoken to so many retailers who all feel the same about their online status. One lady even said she felt she had failed, but I don’t think that is the case at all. We can’t compete price wise or service wise with the online specialists so we really are up against it.

My third key area is getting more engagement from staff. If you look at the nurses’ and teachers’ pay demands, the government is balking at 9% rises yet we are going to have to absorb almost another 10% increase in minimum wage in April and that is only if we pay the base amount. Most indies I know try and stay above that so that they can retain good people.

So, what does this mean? Well for smaller businesses with one or two employees this is probably OK, but we have a team of nearly 40 staff and the cost of this has a real impact on our bottom line.

My intention is to give staff more focus. For some they may be given a stock holding responsibility, for others it may be the website but with the MW rate going to that kind of level it will no longer be good enough for someone to simply appear, serve and go home. We will need more support as business owners as we will be stretched further and further by all the challenges.

Another area I believe we are all going to have to look at carefully, is the margin that we apply. Margin is a difficult thing - too high and you become uncompetitive yet with our fixed costs of buildings, energy and wages spiralling, getting the most from our margin will be essential.

Looking at those around us is key of course. If you have a Card Factory on your doorstep price is an issue, while if you have a WHSmith store with its premium pricing, we indies have room to move and will still be cheaper.

I don’t think one margin is a fix all - using your experience and discretion and applying a margin which is reflected in the goods makes sense.

So, what else will happen in 2023? I believe that in card design we will see further reflection in our society with gender neutral

and less stereotyping in many of the ranges.

The campaign to change the narrative around age in greeting card design is another interesting one. We shouldn’t feel bad about ageing, we should celebrate it and I think the awareness of more and more of these things will result in better designs overall. Retirement cards used to feature a deckchair, a shed, or jokes about hair or drooping body parts - hardly great for self-esteem.

I really believe that the amazing talent pool we have in British card design will see cards continue to evolve to reflect our society, hopefully still with a touch of humour though.

Quite simply neither you or I, the politicians or even Nostradamus can really predict the future, all we can do is deal with it.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy prosperous 2023.

To contact David email: jppozzi@btconnect.com

Above: This year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here was even more bonkers than usual with Matt Hancock coming third. Right: David and his mum Lynda will be on the lookout for the next big thing when they visit Top Drawer and Spring Fair. Bottom: Jellycat is very popular on David’s website.