“It’s important to remember we will get through this”

All physical retail at the moment is facing a challenge of footfall. One thing I observe dealing with local food and drink merchants recently is that people seem to be gravitating towards supermarkets and small suppliers most seem pretty well stocked. They’re offering things people wouldn’t think of first of all but they’re very significant providers of food and some are picking up foot, but if people aren’t out and about that’s a challenge. But they’re reaching out to customers (because they need customers) via all the things yo’d hope they’d use like social media, and websites. So although many don’t have full blown e-commerce sites from the evidence we can see, they’re using the more straightforward, more lightweight methods of posting things on Facebook or Twitter. That’s something that frankly I’ve been advocating to outlets of all kinds for some time. There’s evidence that the engagement of high street businesses of all types with social media is not as strong a it could be. Very often retailers are put of by the concern about going full-on with heavy duty e-commerce. My argument is that actually they don’t need to. Making a step is the most important thing. Right now that’s proving important. Locally, at Taste Harborough, they’re offering to take card details over the phone and deliver. For those that are self-isolating or unable to deliver this is proving to be extremely useful. 

When you get massive dislocations in daily life, that’s when things change. There are two parts; the behaviour of businesses, because they need the turnover. But also in the behaviour of customers. It’s been noticeable when you look at online sales that although one in five pounds is spent online in this country, actually the break down of that is that less than 10% is food, whereas food makes up around 50% of total retail. So there’s been higher penetration into other markets; food has remained stubbornly behind. What’s fascinating to see is whether consumers taking that first step to online shopping, as many have been doing now, will cause lasting change. My guess is we’ll see a sea change in use of non-physical selling.

It’s important to remember we will get through this. It will pass, at some point, even if we don’t know when that will be. It’ll be fascinating to see if this experience fundamentally changes the ways we work, if it changes our relationships with the customers who buy from us. My feeling is that yes, some things will stick. We’ll have to look at that in a year or two’s time. Right now my guess would be some will return to earlier ways but the big change will have taken place.

We listened to the Chancellor’s ‘whatever it takes’ statement with interest. Are they doing enough? Not yet, no. The measures are heavy-duty suff, there’s no doubt these are large amounts of money to support businesses to carry on – but we’re expecting more. Dealing with the costs of businesses is one thing. That only works if we also deal with the cash coming in the front of the business. Yes it affects their ability to pay staff, but we’ll also be hoping for support to help make sure money keeps coming in. Even if you avoid some charges - like for example business rates, and retailers are at the forefront of the support there – there’s still going to be money going out, and wha’t's coming in the front end of the business. Cutting costs is one thing but the oxygen of cash needs to be available to businesses to keep them going.

There are 5.9 million businesses in the UK, 4.8 million of which are self-employed single persons – they look to be particularly challenged by this. We need to make that when this passes, they are still there, continuing to provide employment and products. The Chancellor has done some good things, particularly for retail, but there’s more to do to keep cash moving.

Can the high street survive? When you look at convenience stores – numbers of which are approaching 40,000 – they have their own supply chains and money and credit is flowing. I’ve heard people say these small local offers are very helpful. Personally, I’d run out of lapsang souchong tea bags, here were none in the supermarkets, but I found them at Emerson and Wests, my local fine food retailer. These businesses are getting creative and taking steps which in many cases they hadn’t before. Bizarrely that’s one of the good things coming out of a very bad situation.