Halloween! Not as scary as the future of the High Street
Planning is an essential part of any business activity. Retailers plan their year around key periods where, if they get it right, sales just go through the roof. For the supermarkets Christmas is the most important followed by Easter and for the DIY sheds Easter is a bonanza as people spruce up their homes and gardens ready for the summer.
When I started out Halloween barely figured on the calendar as a merchandising event. A few pumpkins were sold as the Cubs and Brownies scooped out the insides and cut scary faces in the hollowed out skin. A night light candle completed the eerie effect.
Roll forward thirty years and Halloween has become a multi million pound affair with all sorts of merchandise for kids to dress up in then go out and terrorise the neighbourhood with trick or treat antics on the doorstep. We all stock up with sweets as gifts to avoid the dreaded trick! As a sales event it is still far behind Christmas and Easter, but this American approach to Halloween has penetrated our society big time. The space devoted to Halloween merchandise in the supermarkets today is unrecognisable to the stack of pumpkins I built, not so long ago, as a trainee.
Our consumer driven society has demonstrated that we can change our behaviour in a very short period of time. Out of town shopping signalled the demise of the High Street and now the big mall culture is seeping into society, whilst online shopping is growing at a phenomenal rate. We adapt and accept change without understanding the consequences. It’s a bit of a trick or treat choice. Embrace the new convenience as a treat and the trick, on society, can be seen by the boarded up shops in our High Streets.
Our ability to adapt is as strong as our ability to influence Government and policy makers is weak. The Grimsey Review called for a Minister for High Streets and Town Centres to demonstrate their importance to the economy and society in general. Six weeks after publication David Cameron and George Osborne donned their Witches hats and condemned the High Street to the cauldron by demoting it to a junior minister in Brandon Lewis. Is he just the sorcerers apprentice or will he push for the changes needed to prepare our Town centres for the twenty first century?
One of the most terrifying spells cast in recent times was to delay the revaluation of properties for business rates purposes from 2015 to 2017. This concoction has condemned small retailers in the north of the country to two more years of excessive rate bills when property values have fallen up to 40% since the last valuation. For the big retailers the reverse is true as they will enjoy two more years at lower rates as their property values have increased. The Grimsey review team have registered an e petition with Downing Street in an attempt to raise this as a debate in parliament before the chancellor’s autumn statement. We sought the support of the various trade bodies representing retailers and the apathy demonstrated by their response to lobby their members is more scary than Halloween could ever be!
Sign up now and help to undo the spell that might mean failure for many small businesses: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/54748
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