Finally some better retail news, for Peats sake

On Saturday morning during its reopening sale, electronic goods retailer Peats sounded like Irish pubs used to

IN PEATS of Parnell Street in Dublin on Saturday the shop was black with people. This was literally true: it was so crowded that you couldn’t see a great deal of the walls.

The staff, in their grey shirts with Peats embroidered on the breast pocket, dashed through the throng now and then, only to be swallowed by the crowd. At the long counter customers stood three-deep, waiting. There was even a queue at the small desk under the Cables Accessories sign. I was in this queue, looking for two scart cables (which I do not understand) and a television remote control; we held out until our sales assistant was stolen by another customer and never returned.

Strangely enough in a shop that sells hi-fi and computers and the televisions that hung above our heads like electronic clouds, the overwhelming sound in Peats on Saturday at 11.17am – the Very Special Reopening Sale had officially started at 11am – was of voices. The crowd was chatting to itself. People were bumping into people they knew. I bumped into an old friend when I returned later in the afternoon, hoping the place might be calmer. On Saturday morning Peats sounded like an Irish pub used to do.

“We got emails from all over the world,” says Pat Ferguson, the only daughter of the founders of Peats. There were five sons. “I got a lovely one from Jerusalem.” According to her brother Ben, Pat Ferguson has worked in the Parnell Street shop, off and on, for 66 years. “What I do is I help with the cash, but not very deeply. I used to manage the place,” she says.

The closure of the Peats chain of 11 shops on April 2nd was very difficult for Pat Ferguson: “It had an awful traumatic effect on me.”

During the three weeks of the closure Pat, who reads The Irish Times from cover to cover every day – it takes two hours – still got up at seven and walked her dog. But obviously she didn’t get the bus from her home in Glasnevin into Parnell Street each day as she normally does. And she didn’t get her taxi home at 2pm as she normally does. She stands calmly at the end of the counter in a lovely cardigan. Then she meets a tall young man whom she knows.

The Parnell Street shop has always been in profit. It was dragged down, says Ben Peat, by the landlords of the newer shops who did not reduce their rents enough in the downturn.

In Peats on Saturday morning people were saying things like: “Teac are not as popular as they used to be but they’re still a very good machine.” Two old ladies were in the computer section looking at printers, having gained some information that had been written on a piece of paper for them, and one was saying to the other, “Don’t lose this, Gráinne, put it in your purse”. There was sweat standing out on the heads of the staff as they said quietly, “I’m actually serving two other people at the moment”. There were signs apologising for the fact that some items had not been priced, as the 25 staff who have been rehired had not had the time to do it. In fact this Parnell Street shop was only bare boards last Tuesday, and had to be refitted for the very special reopening sale, with the staff working flat out.

On April 2nd the closure of the Peats chain of shops – 11 stores in the Dublin area – caused not exactly an outcry, more an outbreak of head-shaking and tongue-clicking amongst the population, as people said “Another bit of old Dublin gone”. This despite the fact that Peats sold computers and plasma television screens in various suburban shopping centres, and that five of the stores traded under the Sony banner, and that the whole enterprise had only been established by Pat and Ben’s parents, Bridget and Billy, in 1934. Still, people were upset.

“It was like a death in the family,” says Ben Peat, who was not wearing a grey Peats shirt, and nor was his nephew, Ken, who is doing the work of two people, Ben says, in the crowd somewhere. But Ben’s son Oran was wearing a Peats shirt. “We were just bowled over by the response from everyone, including our suppliers,” says Ben.

The younger staff who have not been rehired to work today will, he hopes, use their redundancy money to travel or go to college. Before the closure the 75 members of Peats staff had already taken a wage cut and been put on short time. Also on Saturday it was announced that another Irish company, Oatfield, the confectioners of Letterkenny, is to close.

Peats is going to look at its website and start looking at offering box-only prices. The company is now in examinership, which gives it 100 days to come up with a business plan.

On Saturday a lady came up from Galway especially to buy a laptop at Peats of Parnell Street. A second Peats store, in Rathmines, is also due to open, with three staff and its own version of the very special reopening sale, later this week, if it can be re-fitted in time. “The panic,” says Ben. “The whole panic. It’s been a roller-coaster.”