Following his seminar on the Inspiring Retail Stage at Spring Fair earlier this week (Tuesday 7 February), retail entrepreneur and former ‘dragon’, Theo Paphitis, owner and chairman of Rymans, Robert Dyas, Boux Avenue and the London Graphic Centre, shared his vision of the high street over the next one to three years with GiftsandHome.net.
“I’d like the high street to be more inclusive. Not inclusive in the thinking of the moment, but more inclusive in terms of all our day to day living requirements, how we live our lives,” he explained. “We can’t turn the clock back, but I would love the high street going forward to have some of the core values our high streets used to have – the community values – and I’m pleased to say that we are actually seeing that in some areas.”
Explains Theo: “For example, where I live, I can see that that the high street is coming back. There are a lot of coffee shops, and there could be a bit more shopping – so local councils have got to help out – but what I’m seeing is the community aspect. We trade on that high street with a Robert Dyas store and do really well. People tell me, ‘we love your staff in that store, they’re so knowledgeable,’ and I tell them that they’ve been there a long time. They’re local people, they live locally, they work in a local store. They know the products inside out and they give a great service. Sometimes a customer may come in and not buy anything. But they do come back and they do buy things and they do believe what we tell them.
“The biggest credit to them was when we were running a campaign to raise money for Ukraine,” he continues. “People came in and gave us cheques for thousands of £pounds, and they said to the staff, we’re giving this to you because we know that it will go to the right place. There was trust and loyalty. Yet they’ve come in previously and just bought a light bulb and talked to a member of staff for 20 mins. It’s the trust that’s important. And the next time they want something, they aren’t going to buy it online. They are going to come into the shop and buy it from us,and maybe spend an extra £3, because they know that if there are any problems they can take the product back to the store. They know they can buy it £3 cheaper, and wait for it to be delivered, and possibly be let down, or they can pay a few £pounds more, and they can have their product there and then. They can take it home, check if it works, and if there are any problems they can bring it back. And that’s where I’d like the high street to be, for it to be about the community, with lots of outlets offering products and services.”
On the topic of making local high streets more accessible for locals, he continued: “At the same time, there needs to be somewhere for people to park their cars. Not everyone cycles, so grow up local authorities. As we get a more elderly group of residents, they need to use their cars when they shop on their local high streets, and they therefore need somewhere nearby to park. It doesn’t have to be on the high street itself. The important thing is for there to be that understanding of what local people’s needs actually are, not what someone is telling them their needs are, because that’s poppycock.”
As for working from home encouraging more people to visit their high streets and shop locally, Theo commented: “Although we’re seeing a drop in people shopping in our city centre stores, we’ve benefitted in other ways. Our businesses in local towns are thriving. People are shopping locally and they are getting the service. High streets need shops that have a good range of products that are competitively priced. But they don’t need to be the cheapest because customers respect that you are giving them something else.”
With future entrepreneurs in mind, Theo said that the best advice he received when he started out, and the advice that he gives to other entrepreneurs is, “don’t fool yourself. You’ve got to have passion but don’t be pessimistic. You’ve got to do projections but also build in sensitivities into the calculationsbecause there are times that it doesn’t go your way. I’m very pleased that I’ve always done that, because many times it hasn’t gone my way but I’ve had something in my back pocket. That doesn’t make me clever at all. What it makes me is listen. You can’t run a business on the line because you catch a cold that turns into pneumonia. The bottom line is that entrepreneurs need to be realistic and to plan realistically. Hunger and passion is key, but it can’t be taught. There are different levels of entrepreneurial success and most entrepreneurs are dreamers. I’m still dreaming, it’s the dreams that drive us.”
Top: It was standing room only when Theo Paphitis took the Inspiring Retail Stage at Spring Fair on 7 February. He was interviewed by The Sun’s business editor Ashleigh Armstrong.
