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Fighting Back
Listed under: One Voice
Published: Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Growth of craft superstores needn't sound the death knell for independents, says Steve Smith of Heaths Country Store in New Ollerton, Nottinghamshire.
“In the Last Words column in your Jan/Feb issue I read Mal Collis’s article with interest. While I agree with certain parts, and am sympathetic to his view of stores like Hobbycraft being the nail in his coffin, was it the flooding of his business and not the superstores that sapped his will?
Craft superstores are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, and they’re not to be feared. They've only one purpose: to take as much money as they can while people are interested in crafting. They’re like big ships, with space and buying power to undercut the independent retailer, but that’s their weakness as well. They take time and effort to change course. A small independent shop can take small quantities of stock and with little notice they can change their whole market. Independent retailers believe in the product. When the shop is quiet or new product comes in they’ll use it, because it’s only then you can understand it. This knowledge can be passed to the customer.
Change is a part of retailing and if you don’t recognise this then you become extinct. But what happens when you listen to your customers? I work for an independent retailer who started ten years ago selling gifts and locally-made craft items. He knew where everything came from and would pass that information to the customer, making them feel special. People started to make things themselves to show him. When his mother put some fabric she no longer needed into the shop, people started asking about fabric. Heath decided to get a bigger shop and change business direction. A couple of months later people began to ask about wool. Heath bought in some wool and learned to knit.
Six years down the line, while yarn and fabric shops are closing down around us we're going from strength to strength. Why? Because Heath doesn’t compete with the superstores, he provides what they can’t. The other shops worry about trends when they should have been listening to their customers, not to what they were asking for but what they seemed to need. He doesn’t consider earning a quick buck through the latest trendy craft is worth anything to his business – that’s for the superstores. Heath cares about forming a long-term relationship with his customers. He encourages them to be creative and inventive and not to rely on kits. These don’t bring customers in for materials. Pre-cut papers don't bring customers in for paper to cut.
Without the small shops the big boys wouldn’t have a clue what to sell to whom. We can change quicker and supply the vital support that our customers want and need. Don’t look on superstores as the death of the independent retailer because when they fold or drop the ball we will pick up the pieces.”
Craft superstores are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, and they’re not to be feared. They've only one purpose: to take as much money as they can while people are interested in crafting. They’re like big ships, with space and buying power to undercut the independent retailer, but that’s their weakness as well. They take time and effort to change course. A small independent shop can take small quantities of stock and with little notice they can change their whole market. Independent retailers believe in the product. When the shop is quiet or new product comes in they’ll use it, because it’s only then you can understand it. This knowledge can be passed to the customer.
Change is a part of retailing and if you don’t recognise this then you become extinct. But what happens when you listen to your customers? I work for an independent retailer who started ten years ago selling gifts and locally-made craft items. He knew where everything came from and would pass that information to the customer, making them feel special. People started to make things themselves to show him. When his mother put some fabric she no longer needed into the shop, people started asking about fabric. Heath decided to get a bigger shop and change business direction. A couple of months later people began to ask about wool. Heath bought in some wool and learned to knit.
Six years down the line, while yarn and fabric shops are closing down around us we're going from strength to strength. Why? Because Heath doesn’t compete with the superstores, he provides what they can’t. The other shops worry about trends when they should have been listening to their customers, not to what they were asking for but what they seemed to need. He doesn’t consider earning a quick buck through the latest trendy craft is worth anything to his business – that’s for the superstores. Heath cares about forming a long-term relationship with his customers. He encourages them to be creative and inventive and not to rely on kits. These don’t bring customers in for materials. Pre-cut papers don't bring customers in for paper to cut.
Without the small shops the big boys wouldn’t have a clue what to sell to whom. We can change quicker and supply the vital support that our customers want and need. Don’t look on superstores as the death of the independent retailer because when they fold or drop the ball we will pick up the pieces.”
I agree with everything that you say - we must change to grow, and look always for the next opportunity.
However - and this is the problem for me, and for many others, when you are trading in a small town, it is the drop in footfall in that town that is the death knell for all traders!
In my case the drop has been caused (not exclusively) by the growth of the big out of town supermarkets. We now have, within a 20 mile radius, a Tesco Extra, 3 Tesco stores, an out of town development with Marks & Spencer
(only the third one in Cornwall and all of them based in the western part of Cornwall)and on that same estate a Next and Boots.As well as these we have Lidl, Morrisons, Asda etc within striking distance. What all of these also offer is free car parking, and generally speaking cheaper prices. Add to that the growth in Internet shopping, and the fact that some of our suppliers are very happy to supply anyone with their products, and from the prices charged to the public must be doing so at a better rate than we get, and you now see another side to the coin!
So - what do you see as the answer to this drop in footfall? I note from a visit to your website that you also offer your customers free parking both outside your premises and also within 5 minutes walk. What would you do if you could not offer that opportunity? How many would still visit you if they had to pay to park? I also note that there is a Netto near you - how are you being affected by them selling PaperMania products at knockdown prices? Or have you, like me, taken a decision not to buy from suppliers who do not support the Independent retailer?
Hi Steve
fully with you, I was in retail for 8 years and would rather stick knitting needles in my eyes than carry on now, you have forgot also add into your equasion for competitonthe the craft shows, I now attend them selling a unique range but it hurts like hell to see a large majority of my ex-suppliers undercutting there retailers on a weekly basis across the UK some are even sole distributors, so what chance have the retailers got of competing or going elsewhere?
I look at the trolly’s laden with enough product to last them a year at every show, peeloffs for 2p above cost, how to combat it longterm I have no idea as it is now rife and getting worse even the sattelite channels are now saturated with products well past sell by date.
Create your own product ranges,sell only to bricks and mortar,work with your retailers through website stockist section, or keep going as a busy fool, stick your head in between your legs and kiss your ar** goodbye, sorry to be blunt but as you can gather it hurts you and eventually your few loyal customers by losing fantastic shops and the ideas, classes, community and help, for the sake of a bargain or supplier’s disloyalty.
Fight on my friend but prepare for the worst as more non craft retailers who are struggling with there own ranges jump onto ours for that quick fix alongside there main lines.
regards
Steve