John Donne famously wrote that “no man is an island”. He expanded that “every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less … as any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
You may be shocked to learn that I didn’t intend to start this piece with the words of a 16th century metaphysical poet and priest. Nor would you have necessarily thought that such a beautiful and profound passage would be relevant to 21st century high street retailer of alternative women’s clothing and pop culture merchandise. But be patient with me and I’ll tease out its significance in the next 1000 words or so.
From working as casual Saturday staff in a small Northern women’s clothing boutique, to opening my first store on a small Thai island and subsequently launching women’s high street and online fashion brand Yella Brick Road, I’ve been involved in retail in some capacity for around 25 years. And in that time, I’ve been witnessing the slow death of bricks and mortar retail like a rubbernecker watching a car crash from the passenger seat.
But all is not lost, town centre shopping is not yet dead and there is still time to arrest the slide. While I don’t have the word limit to go into the long list of actions needed to resuscitate it, there is one underappreciated factor that is oft-ignored by those within the sector. It is particularly dismissed by those new businesses of a similar size to my own. That is, competition and the benefits thereof to high street retailers.
Retail on a Thai Island
To crystalise this point, I want to share an anecdote (retailers love anecdotes.) When I was essentially little more than a backpacker, I owned a small clothing shop in Koh Phangan, Thailand. I was part of a great group of retailers catering their products for western tourists. Though there was (lots of) overlap between us in the products we all sold, the sense of community that we shared and the help we offered each other meant that I (and my fellow retailers) could make a comfortable living by a western backpacker’s standard.
All too many new shops would open and unfortunately view their fellow retailers as the enemy. They would invariably ignore our existence while paradoxically abusing us to customers. And each of them would be gone within months. Quite simply, they didn’t appreciate the competition, and we didn’t appreciate them.
Retail in a deprived northern town
Fast forward to the present and I’ve owned Yella Brick Road (an alternative clothing and gift retailer) in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham for around thirteen years. One of the most impoverished towns in the country, Rotherham town centre suffers from having a huge shopping centre (Meadowhall) on its doorstep along with an out-of-town retail park hosting popular retail chains.
Since our inception (backed by matched funding… and a visit from retail expert Mary Portas), we grew from a one person (me) tiny high street shop, to at our busiest six strong team running a larger unit across three floors and a website with a higher turnover than our bricks and mortar. All of this is not to toot my horn, but to emphasise how I couldn’t have reached this level this without a recognition of the role that competition plays in a high street retailer’s success.
Cards on the table, in the early days of Yella I didn’t abide by my ‘love thy competitor’ mantra. I eyed my fellow clothing retailers with suspicion and had no desire to send my customers to their direction. And while I never celebrated their occasional demise, there would be a sense of relief when each one closed as it would mean less threat to my own livelihood. To put it kindly, I was a naïve idiot.
When a competitor dies…
Here’s the main problem with not loving your competitors. No competitors mean limited choice for the consumer. Which means empty units. Which gives the impression; particularly for a small struggling town, that there are not enough shops to plan a visit around.
Each time a competitor closes its doors, a clod, a piece of the continent, a part of the main is washed away. A town centre will be less; its retail offering diminished.
So, if I can speak to any fledging high street retailer for a moment; love thy competitors. Don’t undercut them. Mention them positively to your customers. Respect their product ranges. Don’t undercut. Help them where you can, whether it be with some change, or a spare till roll. Don’t speak ill of them. And finally, don’t undercut. The race to the bottom is downhill, and it hurts when you get there.
If we return to Donne one last time, he also wrote “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” And I will employ this line too with the same sledgehammer subtlety as I have throughout. For every competitor that dies, let it remind you of your own business’s mortality. If you don’t find joy in your enemy, that bell will one day be your own.