Business as usual..

When I worked in the retail sector many years ago, I learned several key lessons. One was that you can't play at running a shop. Either you are open for business or you are not. The extent of your success then comes down to how well organised you are when a customer comes in.

Recent doom and gloom emanating from our high streets are very sad but not entirely surprising. I have seen many people come to try their hand at retail in my home town over the last decade. I've lost count of how many times I've seen the dreaded "back in five minutes" or "gone to lunch" sign on the door. I fully appreciate that some people go in to business with existing commitments but therein lies their mistake. The front door to you pub, cafe, shop or whatever it happens to be must be open to the public.

I point this out because Wales is currently the high street graveyard of the UK and I see it as being entirely avoidable. If people on long term unemployment benefit were utilised more, fewer of these shops would have gone by the wayside. Being long term unemployed doesn't equate to being useless. In many instances, long term unemployed just need a small confidence boost to get them going. Often, they have just endured months of rejection letter after rejection letter and could do with a helping hand. Everyone has something unique to offer and even if their stay in retail was only a short one until they found something they preferred, this would still be a more viable option than just letting premises close. You can paint as many murals and pretty pictures on the shop fronts as you like, but they are either open or closed. Continuity breeds familiarity and trust.

I have just read the views of the so called experts charged with deciding what to do about our high streets and it makes for depressing reading. Mary Portas has been criticised left, right and centre for daring to suggest solutions. What makes her so different from the so called experts is that she has actually run successful high street businesses so knows exactly what works and what doesn't. Of course, one of the problems is that many of these properties are now owned by money men prepared to sit on a vacant property for as long as it takes to make a few quid on their investment. That is sad because these businesses were never really designed to make millionaires. The people who ran them well in the past made a good living but didn't make a killing. They were a cog in a big community wheel and this is where we need to get back to. It will have to be done in spite of the doom  and gloom of local government which has no understanding or experience of private enterprise. They can lose money hand over fist and remain unaccountable to nobody. Private enterprise doesn't operate like that.

It is again revealed that the Scandinavian countries enjoy a more happy existence than we do in spite of them having considerably less sunshine to look forward to. It is all about attitude and we have much to learn. That said, we are apparently now more happy than our German, French and Italian neighbours so perhaps the sunshine argument is a red herring anyway. I prefer to think that our relative distance from the EU and its financial problems has something to do with it as does the decision of most Scandinavian countries to steer clear. Whatever the reason, we have much to learn and should seek to integrate our resources rather than alienate them. If we could just open our doors for business, I think we'd all be a bit happier.