Retail strategy needs more than a lick of paint

Urban Ireland faces a conundrum. Its retail landscape is undergoing harsh and dramatic changes that must be met with imagination and innovation if the erosion of activity on shopping streets is to be braked and reversed.

A random walk along any of the main streets in towns and cities around Ireland is a depressing affair. Closed signs and derelict buildings are all too common.

Once enough of these retail shells develop the entire atmosphere on a street or in a town struggles and risks becoming a no-go zone for consumers who want variety, value and enjoyment when they take the time to stroll.

The stock answers to questions about this worrying trend are predictable and somewhat defeatist. The rampaging internet is allowing consumers shop on their mobiles or at home for lower prices so physical shops are finished.

The economy is in recession and emigration levels are high, so the shopping cohort are contracting and disappearing. The cost of rates make it too difficult for retailers to survive. Finally, the out-of-town shopping centres are providing real alternatives to city and town centres and that is likely to accelerate.

All of these points are valid but we should remember retailing has been undergoing radical change for decades.

The BBC journalist Robert Peston has just completed a documentary that shows clearly that changing trends and preferences have driven sharp changes in the way retailers and consumers engage. That is the one sure prediction we can make today, but after that a lot remains up for grabs.

Peston ended his series in a town in Kent which has thrived by reverting to a retail strategy defined by small and independent shops that are well presented, clean, unique and diverse within the borders of the town.

As a result that town has become a destination in itself because the experience of spending time there has collided with good quality product and service. Could that happen in Ireland ?

We should start with some of the obstacles that town and city councils need to think hard about.

Why, for example, should I drive in to Dublin city centre to shop when car parking is nothing short of extortionist? Why do some suburban towns and rural towns impose rates at levels that deter young retail entrepreneurs from setting up? Finally, why do landlords and the councils that oversee them allow empty shops to proliferate without taking corrective actions?

I’d like to see some radical minds brainstorming ways in which we can re-energise towns like Bandon and Macroom in Cork or a suburban town like Dun Laoghaire in Dublin.

Not enough effort is being made to find ways that turn these places into valued retail focussed centres within their communities that have the value and attractiveness to entice consumers from other parts to visit and spend their hard earned money.

Here’s where I would do at a council meeting; (1) ensure fixed and mobile broadband in each town is capable of supporting superfast data transfer, an essential element in any modern retail environment; (2) provide free paint to every shop in your selected core shopping streets, and a deadline after which punitive fines will be imposed if shop fronts have not been made fit for purpose; (3) a task force that targets unused retail premises and uses a mixture of carrots and sticks to see each unit employed within a reasonable time, and; (4) plan a series of inexpensive themed events that make your town a centre of activity throughout the calendar year.

We either take some hard-nosed actions to reverse a demoralising trend on our shopping streets or stand back and watch the effective disappearance of rural and suburban towns from consumers’ minds and wallets.

Joe Gill is director of corporate broking with Goodbody Stockbrokers. His views are personal.