Plenty of press reports over the last couple of days about the UK parliamentary report into High Street Britain 2015. I can’t find a copy of the report anywhere online so I suspect it has not been released yet. The press reports suggest that some reporters have seen a draft copy. The most informed source I can find is the Retail Enterprise Network – they put in a submission on behalf of several interested parties including newsagents.
The High Street Britain 2015 study is as relevant for the UK as it is for Australia. In every city and town here Coles and Woolworths are increasing their take of retail sales, to the detriment of independently owned small retailers. Newsagents are suffering significantly. Coles and Woolworths provide a perception of better prices. Yet for all their buying might, their schemes like FlyBys (Coles) offer little or no reward. You’d need to spend over $3,000 to get a $5.00 reward with FlyBys (based on usual pricing and points) yet in my =newsagency you get a $5.00 reward after spending, on average, $60.00.
The regulators are letting the loyalty and other smoke and mirrors schemes of Coles and Woolworths play out unchecked while small businesses like newsagents face even tougher pressure. I wish the ACCC would require all businesses offering a loyalty program to note on EVERY RECEIPT the actual value of each point earned so that consumers are no longer kept in the dark about how valuable or useless each loyalty program is. This would shame Coles into building value into their FlyBys program.
Take a look at the latest Officeworks back to school catalogue. It offers exercise books for 1 cent. That’s nuts. It creates an expectation in consumer minds and opens their wallets. In the meantime, those wanting genuine service and product knowledge for other items come to newsagencies. The reality is that comparing like for like newsagents price compete with Officeworks. However, we do not have the multi million dollar Officeworks (Coles) advertising budget to get our pitch out.
Yeah, I’m rambling. My point is that these giants are using smoke and mirrors. Consumers flock to them. Suppliers have no choice but to support them. And in the meantime more independent small businesses shrink and close. Our economy suffers. Our community suppers.
The size of these giant corporations is no longer socially responsible.
The High Street Britain 2015 is expected to document the importance of independent small business retailers to the UK economy and UK society in a broader sense and to propose a course of action to arrest the situation.
I wish our politicians here would consider a study along the likes of that being undertaken in the UK. The closet thing we had was a Senate inquiry in 1999 and my recollection is that not one recommendation from that enquiry was acted upon. It seems that small business in this country has been cut adrift and only the Australian democrats seem interested in small business related policy.