Whether it’s binge drinking, food prices or shoplifting, retailers are getting the blame

I’ve just come back from a meeting with the Minister for Trade and Enterprise in Dublin. Along with my peer group of retail chief executives, I was summoned to explain why we had not cut enough prices of UK-sourced products following the weakness of sterling against the euro. No doubt I will soon be reading about how the Irish government is being tough on rip-off supermarkets.

It’s true that we haven’t cut all the prices on the products (mainly household or health and beauty lines) that come from the UK. Why not? Because our suppliers, huge multinationals like Procter & Gamble and Unilever, have pocketed the difference, passing nothing on to us or our customers.

Such companies are, of course, very skilled in this kind of practice and even the largest retailers struggle to stand up to them. But we, the retailers, got the blame.

Recently, the Irish government asked a committee to recommend solutions to the problem of binge drinking and other alcohol abuse among young people. Their answer was that retail practice is mainly to blame and so the government plans to impose an array of restrictions on retailers, from physical store construction and layout to advertising and the granting of off-licences.

No mention of, say, the role of pubs and clubs, or social and parental factors, or the endless lionisation of drunken holiday pub-crawlers on cheap TV programmes. No, it’s the retailer that must be tackled.

The Scottish government is taking a similar line and I have noticed articles in the same vein starting to appear in the UK media, so it is only a matter of time before it becomes the mantra in Westminster too.

Too often, it feels like we can’t win. If we work our supply chain to keep consumer prices low, we’re accused of squeezing the little guy, or driving farmers off the land: if producer prices rise and retail prices follow suit as a result, we’re profiteering.

Last year, retailers were as good as blamed for the phenomenon of shoplifting, since we had the temerity to make our goods look attractive to customers and thereby also to thieves.

As good retailers, we have to be responsible to our customers for every aspect of the products we sell, whether or not a problem is our fault. We have to take their criticism on the chin, be it fair or otherwise. But we don’t have to take these assaults from the likes of government and the media.

We are far too passive on these kinds of issues. In the nation of shopkeepers, the shopkeepers are getting a raw deal and a rotten profile. All credit to Retail Week for tackling the shoplifting issue head-on, but we need to be heard more often and louder.

We are a vital and generally highly responsible part of both the economy and society. Our representatives, such as the BRC and CBI – and indeed all prominent and influential retailers – need to get that message across and stop us becoming society’s whipping boy.

By Simon burke, chairman, Superquinn and Majestic Wine