Results of our retailer survey

Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce – Local Issues working group

Retailer survey results summary – July 2009

First of all thank you to all of you who responded to the survey.

We wanted to know how all our members in retail, in fact all the retailers in the Brighton & Hove area, are faring at the moment. Particularly to find out what is working for their businesses and what is not.

We can now feed back the results, including any best practices we discovered. As a Chamber we are now better informed as to the issues that matter to our local retailers and we will be working on these on your behalf.

The results of the survey are as follows:

•    The survey respondents have on average been in business for just over 13 years. The range was from 2 years to 50 years in business.

•    55% have experienced a decrease in turnover since this time last year, and 45% have experienced an increase in turnover. Where there has been an increase it has been by between 0 to 30%, but where there has been a decrease it has been more dramatic and between 0 to 50%.

•    Where turnover has increased the reasons given were: more online activity; staff training; store revamp; different products & services proving popular.

•    Where turnover has decreased the reasons given were that they had less customers and they were spending less.

•    Nearly all agreed that customers were spending less on average, even those retailers who had more customers in total.

•    Most retailers (65%) found their running costs have increased, 25% decreased and 10% stayed the same. Costs are up all over, particularly rent, rates and imported goods (the exchange rate has affected this a lot). Where running costs have decreased it is because retailers have reduced salaries (one had reduced salaries by 20% across the board) or reduced staff numbers.

•    We asked our retailers what tools they used in their business: 100% have a website; 45% sold from their website; 55% have an Electronic Point Of Sale (EPOS) system (there were requests for help with getting more out of using these i.e. “better stock assessments so we don't waste money buying stock that doesn't sell whilst being constantly short of stock that does sell is there a magical formula for this ?”); 40% have a business plan; 40% have a cashflow plan; 55% use advertising.

•    When asked what would our retailers most like to change about their business, most responses were to reduce external costs (ones that are not in their direct control) particularly rent, rates (could this be calculated on a percentage of turnover?), electricity and insurance costs. Many would like to have more staff but either can’t afford them or don’t have time to spend on recruitment.

•    We asked what they would like help with and popular answers were: being able to pay rent monthly rather than quarterly (because of the huge cash flow impact); cheaper parking for their customers and levelling the playing field between Churchill Square based shops and the rest of the city by removing the ‘unfair car park subsidy’ at the Churchill Square car parks; help with marketing and web marketing.

•    When asked how could the shopping experience in Brighton be improved the overwhelming first choice was for cheaper car parking. Other suggestions were: to improve the Queens Road (for train travellers) and London Road (for drivers) gateways so that they provide a better impression to visitors; to reinstate the park & ride service; better signage; to give pedestrians priority in St James Street.

•    We asked whether our retailers belonged to any business support organisations and 80% belonged to at least one. Very few belonged to the same one, examples included: Federation of Small Businesses; North Laine Traders Association; Brighton Tourist Forum; Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce; Hove Business Association; Business Improvement District; British Shops & Stores Association; Sussex Enterprise; the St James’s Area Action Group.

•    Finally we asked some general demographics information:
72% were sole traders
22% were independents with multiple outlets
6% were branches of a national chain

50% are based in the BN1 postcode area
40% in the BN3 area
10% in the BN2 area

Annual turnover of the retailers ranged from £35K to £1.2M:
22% had turnover of less than £100K
22% had turnover of between £100K and £200K
28% had turnover of between £200K and £300K
28% had turnover of more than £300K

As you can see from the above there are some really interesting results & we’ve got some great ideas on how the Chamber might be able to help our retailers directly, as well as working on your behalf with our partners throughout the city.

We'd be pleased to have your comments on the survey results, by commenting on this news story.

Thank you.
Peter Jenkins
Vice President & Chair of the Local Issues Working Group

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk