How would you have felt if your loved one had presented you with a box of Thorntons chocolates on Valentine’s Day?

How would you have felt if your loved one had presented you with a box of Thorntons chocolates on Valentine’s Day?

The suspicion must be not very impressed if the retailer’s interim results are a gauge. There was little Willy Wonka wonder in the profits slump.

For years, Thorntons has been confounded by a taxing question: is it fundamentally a retailer or a branded goods supplier? It is attempting to draw shoppers into its own and franchisees’ shops based on a position traditionally veering towards premium, while at the same time its confectionery is widely available in the supermarkets.

However, its direction was clear in Wednesday’s results. Company-owned shops are being shut and, tellingly, Thorntons described a slimmed down chain as “an important shop window for the brand”. Commercial sales of Thorntons’ product through other retailers will become the main revenue channel over the next three years.

It’s a strategy that makes sense but the devil will be in the retail detail, which must be right if the brand is to retain what it calls “mass-premium appeal” rather than simply be another box on the shelf of a grocery aisle.

On the retail front Thorntons has been outmanoeuvred. Hotel Chocolat, with fewer stores, has cleverly wooed consumers on the basis of exclusivity, product provenance and quality. It has also created an experiential element to its shops often lacking in Thorntons.

There are signs that Thorntons is addressing such issues. A new store model in Birmingham has done well, and measures to improve shopper experience such as better merchandising and browsing tables are welcome.

Thorntons boss Jonathan Hart, who joined just over a year ago, brought insight from Caffe Nero that will be helpful in making stores better money-spinners. But there is lots to be done if Thorntons is to hit the retail sweet spot.

Business rates madness

January’s inflation rate fall was welcome news for hard-pressed consumers but for retailers there is unwelcome irony in the decline. Last September the RPI rate was at a 20-year high of 5.6%. And it’s that figure which is used to calculate this year’s business rates rise.

It’s an absurd way of doing things that must be changed if retailers are to continue to create wealth and jobs.

The message has still not got through to the politicians.