Specialist retailers can survive amid growing supermarket power and soaring online sales, provided they focus on a differentiated customer proposition.

That was the conclusion of a Retail Week Conference panel discussion exploring retail winners and losers amid times of cost inflation, price deflation and political uncertainty.

Fat Face chairman Alan Giles said: “Fittest specialist retailers will get fitter." But he warned: “I don’t see any relief for them in terms of a multi-pronged attack.”

Superquinn executive chairman Simon Burke said that those specialist retailers that have “teetered on the brink” in the past have done so because they have “lost focus on the core proposition of their brand”.

He added: “If they respond to difficult times with a knee-jerk reaction and try to take supermarkets on at their own game, they’re stepping onto a slippery slope.”

Javelin Group chairman Sir Geoff Mulcahy said there is also an argument that the hypermarket format is peaking because fewer people in the “new generation of shoppers” are visiting stores.

He added: “Brands that will be successful will be those that understand customers, can continuously evolve to meet their needs and can manage their cost structure so that it’s competitive.”

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