Building an Irish-indie Christmas

Shopping locally this season will be of huge benefit to our economy although independent shops are realistic about what people have to spend

A CAMPAIGN asking consumers to spend more in (possibly more expensive) independent retailers this festive season, as the Government prepares to give us all yet another hair shirt for Christmas,may seem rather quixotic so it is perhaps fitting it has been launched by a bookseller.

This tilt at windmills has been orchestrated by Bob Johnston, theowner of the Gutter Bookshop in Dublin’s Temple Bar who had what he calls “a mad, crazy idea” last weekend as he was sitting on the Dart going into work.

“I was thinking about the whole notion of local shopping and its importance and the difference it could make to so many people and I was trying to think of a way of getting that message out to as big a group of people as possible. It is a simple message aimed at persuading them that where they choose to shop is important. I came up with the name Irish Indie Christmas.”

Within hours he had set up a Twitter and Facebook account using the name @irishindiexmas and set about getting followers and friends. Within days he had hundreds of both.

“Normally when I have an idea like this I think to myself ‘I wish someone else would do something about this’ but this time I thought ‘sod it’ and did it myself.”

He is not entirely unrealistic about what his social media campaign can achieve and he knows he can’t expect people to do all their Christmas shopping in local independent retailers. “That is not how it works, but this is just about creating an awareness that there are consequences arising out of where you spend your money.”

Johnston’s campaign has struck a chord with many people and found support from a lot of retailers including Shane O’Connor of O’Connor Electronics in Galway.

“Where people spend their money has an absolutely huge impact on local businesses,” he says. He told Pricewatch last week that if many Irish retailers had just a 10 per cent uplift in turnover over Christmas this year it could keep them afloat for another 12 months.

And there are many local businesses who will not be afloat without such an uplift, according to David Fitzsimons of Retail Excellence Ireland. He could scarcely be more gloomy about the prospects for Irish retailing this year. He predicts that spending might be up this year compared with last year but only because weeks of snow last winter all but destroyed trade in the run-up to last Christmas.

Fitzsimons says that while he supports the shop local campaign, spending locally when the overall economy is good makes a bigger difference than spending locally when every retailer big and small is struggling. He also says the “ Consumer sentiment is on the floor, there is very little compulsive shopping, weekend retailing is dire. The only positive is the ECB rate cut, that normally triggers activity.”

He believes the scheduling of the Budget is a disgrace. “To publish an austerity Budget at that time of the year, when economic activity is at its highest, or should, be is just stupid.”

O’Connor accepts that in the current climate many people do not have the luxury of shopping around and have to source the cheapest goods they can.

“People are swayed by price and convenience and as the recession has deepened it has got worse. For some people, price is supremely important and I can completely understand that but others could make a real difference by thinking a bit more about where they spend.”

He also points out that local retailers contribute to local economies in the form of sponsorship of events that major retailers want nothing to do with because local managers of Tesco or Toxins, for example, have no control over budgets.

Tara Buckley of RGData which represents small retailers is “hugely supportive” of the shop local initiative and anything that offers support for local retailers. She is also very concerned for the future.

She says a lot of its members are facing into their third or fourth difficult trading year. “The Christmas period can be a tipping point for a lot of businesses and for many, if it does not happen this year then they will have no option but to close.”

She points out that when people shop in the big multi-national retailers they can be sure that a lot of the money is sent directly to the UK or to Germany (and Spain and the US) but when people shop locally the money is circulated around the economy and local retailers are more likely to buy locally and to employ the services of local businesses be they accountants or sign writers or whatever.

“We are finding more and more that people want to support local retailers. Yes, they want to get good value but that is not always about finding the cheapest thing.”

She says its members have done a lot of work in providing added value when it comes to customer service and offering fresh produce in particular.

While it is impossible to ignore the allure of the major multi-national retailers with their aisles and aisles of discounted products a some of which they are selling below cost a and the hundreds of thousands of ripostes at home and abroad offering very good value on virtually everything, it is easier to ignore the consequences of only going down that route.

According to RGData the “multiplier effect” means that €1 spent locally is worth €4 while €1 spend in a global chain is worth a fraction of that.

Local independent shops are also the biggest supporters of Irish food producers and suppliers and over 75 per cent of what the umbrella group’s members sell is Irish supplied and produced.

“For many small local food businesses producing quality Irish foods like jams, confectionary, cakes, cheeses, fresh salads and vegetables independent shopkeepers are the only ones who will stock and sell their products,” says Buckley.

Peter Boland who runs a wine shop in Galway is more upbeat and he says the mindset of shoppers is changing. “Five years ago, when there was full employment, people were not too concerned about where things came from but I think that has changed now. People are still very demanding about price and service but they are also being proactive about looking for local suppliers.”

He says independent retailers can compete on price but also on different levels. “If a big multi-national decides to sell below cost, which has been happening a lot, then there is nothing we can do about it, but if they are trading to make a profit then we can compete and sometimes better their prices.”

He says a well-orchestrated shop local campaign “would make an enormous difference to us. There is a little bit more effort involved but it is incredibly valuable to us. I often hear people talking about the fact that their children are emigrating to Australia and then they say they do all their shopping in a multi-national and so much of their spend just leaves the country. I would never presume to judge people for that but people need to think of the consequences of their shopping habits.”

While Johnston may have been all Don Quixote in his optimism about his campaign when he launched last weekend, this week he is more like Sancho Panza in his realism. “In all honesty I am not sure the campaign will make that big a difference to our shop and I don’t think people will be beating down our doors this morning to buy books but I am hoping the campaign will raise more awareness. That is all we are looking for.”