Over The Counter

Busy minds think about big topics, none more so than life and death.

In recent weeks sadly our industry has been rocked by the passing of Deborah Jones, the artist behind Forever Friends and of course David Hicks, the founder of Really Good and Soul.

When we started in business 34 years ago Forever Friends was a must have product. I can clearly remember ordering everything from stationery to school bags and of course the greeting cards. The ‘Brownsword bears’ helped build a company that reached dizzying heights and Cardsharp’s column in last month’s PG perfectly framed the history of this iconic brand in UK greeting card landscape.

David Hicks has also rightly been classed as a legend in cards and gifts and not surprisingly there have been many glowing tributes shared.

Really Good’s Bright Side Man Tin was of course was a recent phenomenal product, but it was the Not Particularly Orange postcards, that is my first memory of David.

Loss is of course part of life. In contrast, as I write this, in eight weeks today my first child is due to arrive. I think it is fair to say I am in for a shock.

Our greeting card industry is of course built on these notable events. It is all about celebrating, remembering and sympathising. With my imminent arrival I have been thinking long and hard about business and the retailing landscape.

Perhaps some of the meetings I have attended in the last few weeks are making me question everything even more.

A case in point, I was invited to meet our local MSP and other members of the Scottish Parliament to discuss a Just Transition. This document is focused on the move towards Carbon Zero and acknowledges the mistakes of the past. It wants to avoid creating ghost towns and leaving workers and families behind in the race to rid ourselves of oil, gas and anything else that doesn’t fit the new hot topic.

The easiest way to relate to it is the coal miners and the ‘pit towns’ that were abandoned as the men and coal were discarded.

I then went on from this meeting to one about The Right Change to Retail Strategy. This Scottish Government document was also supplemented with a local 156-page retail strategy. Attendance at both meetings was average at best and sadly it was the same faces who always tend to support and discuss these and other issues who were present. I am not sure if it is apathy, nervousness or just a lack of interest/care that stops people turning up.

What becomes clearer with every weighty document is the people writing them, the people formulating the ideas, the people trying to highlight the need for change have in fact invariably never done what we do. They have never paid a wage, created a job or risked not having a monthly amount of money to pay their bills.

In some ways it is like a group of football players being managed by someone who didn’t play the game. That manager will have to work a lot harder and prove a lot more in terms of success to gain the trust of those that are actually doing it. We are the players. We are kicking that ball. We are living the 90 mins of retail, except our game doesn’t ever really end. Continuing the analogy, my team, Manchester United has just announced its new manager and like every city centre it too needs to regenerate.

BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE.

Mind over Matter?

With so many of us reeling from rising costs, falling footfall, staff challenges, changes to the retail landscape… on top of things going on in our own personal lives and the world at large, our grey matter is being put to the test.

With a baby’s imminent arrival, the fragility of life brought to the fore by the passing of two industry icons and all the think tanks and meetings I have attended recently, my brain has never been busier. Here is this month’s ‘brain dump’!

Top left: The workings of the brain have yet to be fully understood by David Robertson, and everybody else for that matter! Above: Few ranges will ever make the same level of impact on the card racks as Forever Friends did. Left: Indies are key players in the beautiful game of retailing.

OVER THE COUNTER

Town centres the length of the country are putting new plans in place to make the difference. They are desperately trying to save themselves from becoming irrelevant, but when you see iconic buildings such as HMV Oxford Street shop become American Candy stores, I do worry.

Today I was asked to give an opinion on plans for a city centre redevelopment of an old department store. This local town centre had secured nearly £3 million of funds to turn this building back into a key venue. It sits proudly in the centre of the town square and at one time was a fantastic UKG account. Now the local group is setting about turning it into a cinema, coffee shop, communal class space with retail.

One of the committee members asked my advice about what they should do with the retail side. While I was flattered to be asked for my feedback and input, at the back of my mind I sensed that the retail aspect of the redevelopment was at best an after thought with little idea of what to do with it. They didn’t have a clear strategy for it. They hadn’t thought about leasing the space or how retail would work with the larger building or even if there would be any call for it. It annoyed me that like so many of these projects and documents, retail is shoved in some way at the end rather than being seen as an important element.

My brain is still buzzing with the overload from my recent meetings, distilling some of the most talked about elements, a few of which are the following…

City/town centre first

This is supposed to be the priority, yet permissions are increasingly being granted for more and more on the edges of towns and cities.

I have been speaking about ‘town centre first’ and looking at the economic impact of what is already there for over 15 years and guess what, whenever there is a new development on the outskirts it is approved. You only need to look at the amount of empty concrete centres in town centres that are now trying to be repurposed or knocked down to realise that new and shiny wins and if new and shiny has solar panels and is carbon neutral, it wins even more.

Online sales tax

The vast majority of us retailers have tried to go online in some way although we will probably never reach the volume that would mean this tax will be an issue, in my mind we simply can’t compete with the main online operators. I believe that the only thing we can do is make the shopping experience so good that the consumer opts to shop with us in store. Any online sales for me are a bonus. And what are the government going to do with the tax? Please give it to us bricks and mortar retailers especially as shortly in Scotland we will be back to paying full rates.

Traffic in town centres

In essence reducing car use is great if you live in major areas with good and quick connectivity. It doesn’t work though in small local areas where the convenience of having your own car wins.

There should be more emphasis on encouraging people to live in town centres again by redeveloping buildings and upper levels into housing.

Incentivising entrepreneurship

I have never met an entrepreneur that has needed to be incentivised. We can be tempted to do things if the conditions and costs are favourable, but every entrepreneur that I know makes decisions based on success. Their belief is that that they will be rewarded in some way for their decisions.

Left: Micro-chips under the skin could do away with money and credit cards, with the technology Walletmor is proposing. Below: Not long now until David Robertson’s life will change forever. Below left: David Robertson (right) at The Greats 2018 with fellow Scottish indies from The Gift in Beauly.

Fair work - reduce workbased poverty

There is a lot of chat around upskilling to retain jobs. One interesting theory is that selfscanning could rid retail of one of its largest costs - people.

British/Polish firm Walletmor is now offering under the skin microchips so that you can literally pay for your coffee, taxi or train by scanning your arm. Science fiction that is now science fact!

And sticking with science fact, with it now less than two months until I become a father, I have been thinking what my legacy will be? It is a difficult question as we don’t get to look back and write our own story once we are gone. That story is written by our actions and decisions and we have to hope that it is as bold and shiny as a Bright Side tin or as lovingly thought of as a cute Forever Friends bear.

Ultimately will any of our stores be remembered as anything more than a local institution? I can think of lots of shops that have come and gone and are spoken about in the ‘do you remember them?’ tones, although I do hope that our Pozzis business, with its 110+ years heritage will live on forever.

However, one of the bigger questions that keeps me awake at night is not will my child take over running my shops, but will he/she even be shopping at all? Now that’s something to keep our brains busy, that’s for sure.

To contact David email: jppozzi@btconnect.com