Retail's Slow Suicide

Every couple of months, it’s the same story here in Cork. City officials try to change how things are done in Cork, and the retailers are up in arms, foaming at the mouth at the very concept that someone would DARE to make a change that might possibly affect them in a negative way. This is usually followed up by some local bigwig trying to boost his popularity ratings by spouting some empty phrases about „buying local“, and how e-commerce is killing local retail. I usually throw up in my mouth a little when I read that, something which is regularly followed with a full-on outburst when I read the usual nationalist drivel in the comment sections below the respective press articles. There certainly appears to be a small but noisy part of the local population that has long since flushed their last remaining brain cells down the drain.

Snarky comments aside, the appearance of online platforms such as Amazon has turned out to be a real challenge for many high-street shops, both independent stores, and multi-nationals. And as if that wasn’t enough, the proliferation of edge-of-the-city retail parks and shopping centres has added additional pressure. What’s more, city centres begin to look more and more alike, with the same high street brands seemingly present all over the world, and that’s if there’s still retail left, and the entire centre hasn’t been taken over by bookmakers, pawnbrokers, or e-cigarette shops. So yes, local independent retailers are in a bad spot. However, the resulting chorus of nationalist chest thumping, barely concealed anti-Americanism, and ill-informed anti-capitalist rants is not only not helpful, it is disingenuous and counter-productive. You see, while I totally agree that buying local is a good thing, and that local traders should be supported, this approach negates the very real fact that a lot of the trouble is self-inflicted. Loyalty towards local businesses is not a one way street. Customer demands and expectations have changed dramatically in the last twenty years, and it is incumbent upon any local retailer to not just realize the inevitability of this paradigm shift, but to actively participate in it, or they will inevitably fall by the wayside. It’s basically a case of „sink or swim!“

Oliver Plunkett Street may be a nice and vibrant shopping street, but its future is bleak if local businessmen don't adapt to the changing conditions in the market.

But why are local retailers dropping like flies? Why is Amazon so often the preferred choice? The reasons are legion, and I will only address a few particularly obvious ones in this post, because otherwise, I’d simply be sitting on it for ages. The first issue is quite frankly an issue of choice. Many local businesses have a rather limited selection. Now don’t get me wrong, in general, specialisation is good, it is one of the strategies that can help smaller retailers survive and even thrive in the current market. However, when this leads to having only one single brand of products in your store, books on just one subject, and even then only a limited quantity in store, you really shouldn’t be surprised if people prefer to go online and get their stuff there. This is especially true if half of the other stores in a city stock the same bloody type of product! This is particularly galling here in Cork, where an estimated 75% of the stores in the city centre sell either the type of clothes worn by second-rate Young Offenders extras, or the type of dresses that would seem more appropriate for the types of ladies standing on the roads in the border region between Germany and Czechia. I should know, my family moved from Hamburg to Prague back in 1994, I’ve seen the „spectacle“ for myself. 

Of course, a good selection is only part of the issue. If your store looks like it hasn’t seen an upgrade since Eamon de Valera’s first term in office, or if your merchandise is crammed into the shelves so tightly that you risk being buried under an avalanche just when trying to get one item out of the shelf, then these are not positive impressions for customers. The same goes for extremely narrow aisles where even an average-sized customer cannot turn around without knocking merchandise of the shelves. The latter is a particular issue here in Cork, where many business owners seem to relish the idea to basically working in a shoebox. Sorry, but with that kind of store, you’ll be lucky to survive the decade! However, the same goes for start-up stores. I get that you’re trying to save money at every corner, but just rolling in a handful of IKEA wardrobes into an otherwise barren store, without any decoration will not win you any customers. There’s a difference between minimalism and apathy, something that quite a few people don’t seem to recognise. I cannot repeat this enough, outside impressions are vital for every brick & mortar store, if your business doesn’t look appealing, customers will simply stay away, and that goes for both the brand identity and the merchandise. And quite a few of the “traditional” stores that have gone out of business in Cork recently were sorely lacking in that regard, so their demise wasn’t all that surprising to me.

Granted, going "Full Apple" is probably not an option for a lot of stores, nor is it desirable.

However, with a bit of thought and effort, even drab and uninspiring stores can be made attractive again...

...as these photos of Caulfield's SuperValu in Merchant's Quay show. Previously, this store had felt like it was stuck in the 1990s, and not in the good part of that decade.

There’s one other key issue, something that I only really became aware of after working in business development. What’s a store’s unique selling point? What differentiates you from the competition? I have a sneaking suspicion that 90% of Cork business owners will not be able to name a unique selling point about their business, or even describe what makes it special in a short time frame, say 30 seconds. But if even the owners can’t provide a succinct description of their business, then how the hell do they expect people to recommend these stores to their friends or family in a similar manner? And forget about getting any decent advertising campaign off the ground without such a laser focus on your unique selling point. Which leads me neatly to my next point, an attractive online presence. Granted, this isn’t as much of an issue here in Ireland as it would be in other countries like Germany, however it is still shocking to see just how many businesses don’t even keep their listing in Google Maps up to date, have out-of-date websites, or Facebook pages that they haven’t updated in years. These things aren’t fads, people! They’re an integral part of how we do business in this day and age, and you simply can’t afford to ignore the online world anymore, certainly not if you’d like to stay in business that is. 

Another issue is opening hours. Ireland has one of the most liberal regimes with regards to opening hours I’ve seen so far. Yet, for some reason, many business owners have opening hours that can best be described as “restrictive”. Cork has a very young workforce, 50% of the total workforce here are younger than 35 years, and many of these have quite a bit of money to spend. However, the only stores that have opening hours that are attractive to these workers are the large chain stores. The majority of local stores are closed on Sunday, with quite a few being closed all weekend. If you’re working full time in one of the many IT companies in the region, the weekend might however be the only time when you can make it to the city centre, so businesses that close over the entire weekend lose out on a lot of potential business. 

With all these issues, how can retailers find a way to survive and even thrive in the current environment? The first step must be for business owners and proprietors to recognise two painful facts: Firstly, no business has a God-given right to exist or to operate without impediment. Second, the old way of doing business is changing, and any business that wants to survive will need to adapt. Attempting to hold on the current status quo will not only doom the business in question, but will potentially have negative effects on the entire city. This is without a doubt the hardest part, change is always viewed with suspicion. However, there is no way around it. Once that first step is taken, the other ones are often a lot easier. In fact, the very first step, setting up an effective presence on social media, proper listing on Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps, and others, is free, and can easily be done even from home. Hell, how do you think I manage my blogs? On a less flippant note, while I personally can’t give much advice with regards to an actual physical store, I would encourage every business owner to start quizzing their customers about their experience and gather feedback that way. Maybe prepare a small questionnaire that you can ask customers to fill out. This type of groundwork is invaluable when it comes to finding out how customers actually think about a business, and will make the work of any future architect, retail consultant, or whatever a lot easier.

Going back to a more familiar topic for me, there’s still a rather substantial elephant in the room that I haven’t addressed so far: Amazon. I can understand how a company that is seemingly present in every way of life (hell, even my pillows are from Amazon!) may seem unassailable. However, contrary to what the likes of leftist parties such as Solidarity, People before Profit, et al. might want you to believe, Amazon is not some force of nature that was suddenly thrust upon humanity, and neither is it the result of some sort of plutocratic conspiracy to enslave humanity. Amazon became big because they offered something unique: an easy to use, reliable online shopping platform. Ease of use is one of the main criteria for a lot of people, and any provider that is able to deliver this will have a major advantage. Now granted, setting up a full-blown online store is quite a task, especially when you consider all the back-end work that needs to go into it. And that’s before things like GDPR come into play. However, as I mentioned above, many companies can’t even get the basics right, and either aren’t present online or on social media at all, or if they are, their presence is horribly out of date, with websites looking like they were created with Microsoft FrontPage, which they probably were, to be honest. It doesn’t take much to create a decent looking website for your company these days, with platforms like Wordpress, Wix, or SquareSpace available that are easy to use for pretty much everyone. And beyond even that, it really doesn’t take much to quickly set up and update a Facebook page for your company. If you’ve got enough free time to write a snarky letter about traffic restrictions to your local newsrag, then you’ve likely got enough time to update your business’ social media presence with a new offer, or even just a normal post. Chances are the latter type of activity will be more helpful for your company than the former. There really is no excuse not to do this anymore!

While certainly a factor to be reckoned with, Amazon is not invincible, and in fact is at risk of becoming a victim of its own success. The website is looking increasingly dated, and shopping is a cluttered, inconsistent affair.

Now, websites, company blogs, Facebook Pages and the like, as easy to use and powerful as they may be, can only do so much, especially given the resources that Amazon, or even multinational chain stores have to offer. Is there a tool that individual retailers can wield to fend off this apparently unfair competition? Some great new app or algorithm developed by some whiz-kid in a trailer in Silicon Valley maybe? Well, yes and no. The answer lies in a concept that goes back to pre-industrial Europe, the co-operative. While going up against the big names in retail alone may seem daunting, banding together with other retailers will make a huge difference. Businesses that are struggling with their first steps in the digital world can benefit from the know-how of more tech-savvy business owners. However, beyond facilitating a knowledge transfer, such cooperatives are often much more suited to actually building up a decent IT infrastructure for their members, from purchasing and installing the necessary servers and software (virtualisation included, I hope!), to implementing a standard card payment solution for all members, or even in extreme cases the establishment of a joint warehouse/logistics hub for a joint web shop, and a joint online identity for all member businesses. Ironically, that very point is Amazon’s major weakness. While that company originally started out with a comfortable, easy to use website, the site has become more and more chaotic in recent years, and even outright antiquated in some respects. And don’t even get me started on their app! Consequently, anyone who can offer a comfortable, easy to use website, fair prices and shipping conditions will have a reasonable chance of surviving. If you can combine all of that under a single, unique Cork brand, you really have a winner on your hand.

Like it or not, this is how the future of retail will increasingly look like. Any businessman who continues to ignore the digital reality we find ourselves in is basically writing his own epitaph 

All this requires effort, out-of-the-box thinking, and guts to pull off, though. It will require a change of mentality, the acceptance of the fact that the way that business has been done in this city since the days of Jack Lynch is not the way forward. This includes the approach to cars in the city centre, or public transport. This will require the expansion of “click & collect” services to their exact opposite, ordering in store and having it shipped home for certain products. Most importantly though, it will require business owners and proprietors to leave their comfort zone, the comfortable role of a victim, and actually innovate. The tools are there, the very technologies that made Amazon what it is today can also be use to keep the high street alive. The question is: Are Cork traders savvy enough, brave enough, to use them?