Paul Laville, Managing Director, T21 Group OPINION


January 2022 ertonline.co.uk


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Paul Laville shares his first-hand experience of how retailers have fought back against the challenges to be stronger and better for the future.


A


s a positive person who likes to believe that the ‘glass is always half full’, the best adjective I can use to


describe 2021 in business is ‘interesting’. I feel I’ve let myself down by resorting to such vague terminology but if I start using phrases like ‘it was a mixed bag of ups and downs’ then I am beyond hope... However, 2021 was, for me and


many others, a year in which nothing happened that was outrightly terrible… thankfully! One of my highlights of 2021 was


sitting on the ERT Awards judging panel, which was really enjoyable, and not just because of the coffee and pastries that were laid on! It was great to get back out into the world and to socialise with people again – that alone was worth the train journey to London, and afterwards I found myself looking forward to the ceremony itself more than ever, hoping it wasn’t going to be postponed! But the most enlightening and


worthwhile aspect of the ERT Awards judging day was reading through the retailer entries. At times it was quite a moving experience. Nobody, it seemed, had come through the pandemic unscathed. Every business that entered the Awards had been affected in some way, reminding us exactly how hard COVID-19 had hit a retail industry which was already under pressure. For years we’ve all been concerned with “the


death of the high street”, and then we had Brexit and COVID. And yet every business that had posted an entry was able to show us proof of their resilience and success in the face of unprecedented disruption. Every entry


innovative ways, or even just pulling things in to focus on specific advantages that allowed them to keep going. Certainly none of them had been standing still. They were all moving forward in a positive direction. We’ve all heard phrases like


“judging this year was very difficult” and “everyone is a winner” but I’ve always believed such things to be little more than platitudes. However, my new first-hand experience had showed me how true, at least in this case, those words actually are. It isn’t over yet. The spectre of


COVID still looms large and we’re in the throes of changes brought about by Brexit. Transport


issues,


components shortages, business rates, factory suspensions and closures, customs delays, economic fluctuations – these things are all affecting our ability to trade, yet we’re still negotiating our way through a perfect storm of global issues. However, taking the glass-half-full


view, these are all factors we have no control over, so while we do need to be aware of them and work within the restrictions they impose, we can’t allow them to dictate our thinking. Instead, what business owners can do is look at the things we can influence – such as shop floor and website, our services, selling the stock we have rather than the stock we can’t get, and providing the best shopping experience possible – and build flexibilities into our business plans so that firstly we’re in a good place to cope with disruption, and secondly that the effect of such disruptions on


our growth is minimised. Of course, it’s easy to write this and far more difficult to action it. There is no easy


demonstrated that rather than sitting back and just letting things happen, retailers were turning things around and finding their advantages, capitalising on their strengths as independents. The finalists had all spent their year changing


their businesses in some way, opening new routes to market, diversifying, smartening up their e- commerce sites, investing in new showrooms, adapting their delivery and installation services, engaging customers in new and often quite


solution and everybody’s case is different. But as I learned from the ERT Awards judging and ceremony, and as I listened to the retailers at the Turning Point Live Conference who’d been through some pain, it most certainly can be done. And I believe that whatever happens this year,


through the resilience, imagination, grit and determination of business owners, the retail industry is certainly able to adapt and grow… and it will survive!


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