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Design Sheridan Co

Weekly Wrap - Michael Sheridan, CEO, Sheridan & Co

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

July 3, 2009 | 4 min read

News this week that UK retailers are stubbornly refusing to join any downward spirals of recessionary blues is surprising to many, but not to me.

The third quarter of 2009 began on Wednesday, July 1, with an almost rosy report from Sir Stuart Rose at Marks & Spencer in which the executive chairman said consumer confidence is beginning to stabilise.

Quarter two of the year has just passed with a remarkable absence – there was not a single profit warning from a quoted retailer. That, according to the study by accountants Grant Thornton, is the first time a quarter has passed in such statistical silence in the five years its Quoted Retail Companies Index has tracked the trading statements of our biggest retailers.

The lack of a wobble by any of the big retailers is described as “astonishing”, which is a pretty strong word for a pretty sober study. It goes further, saying the percentage of positive trading bulletins is the highest it has recorded.

The positivity oozing from retailers has to be set in context. A year ago, from which they draw today’s comparatives, merchants were climbing down from their retail highs. They appear to be relieved their worst fears did not come to pass.

But I, for one, am not surprised. This may have begun as a credit crisis at the banks, but we have long argued that it has never been a cash crisis for consumers as a whole.

For the vast majority of consumers, this is a cash-rich crisis – the crisis being what to do with their money. Savings rates are shocking, so there is no draw in the fractional interest to be found at the bank or building society. Workers who do not feel like they are at risk of redundancy tomorrow, next month or even next year are feeling well-off, a glow enhanced for many by reduced mortgage payments. So what to do? Shop, of course.

Shopping is a fundamental social activity. Sheridan & Co works in retail because it is an important lifestyle activity. In many ways I/we feel the experience we have gained over the last 25 years has just been in preparation for what is about to come. As the business community begins to realise how resilient this sector has been, development will be spectacular. How do I know? The number of enquiries for retail projects has doubled for the 3rd and 4th quarters.

As important consumers of marketing services – founder members of that particular club – retailers are important to so many of us in design and advertising.

Even if retailers are refusing to eliminate the negative in what they think and what they say, it is great they are prepared to accentuate the positive.

Designers and marketers need to do likewise; a collective attack of the heebie jeebies will not help us. Remember, this was always a crisis of confidence – confidence in banks, in the market, in our economic destiny. Cash may be hard to come by to invest but confidence is yours to deposit.

If you want an example of confidence in the creative sector, go to www.designleicestershire.com and see how the architects and designers of Leicestershire have come together to accentuate the positive via a book which is to wing its weighty way around the world.

The Design Leicestershire book is the opposite of a profit warning; it is a hugely positive trading statement from a creative cluster. Like retailers sensing there is a market there for the taking, it exudes confidence and we are proud to be part of it.

Michael Sheridan, Sheridan & Co

Design Sheridan Co

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