Three points I would make as I don't believe smaller home based brands have had a huge impact on cricket shop closures:
1. The High Street in general, not just sports/cricket retailers has been hit very hard. Not only recently by Covid, therefore reducing custom, but over the last 10 years by increased costs - particularly high business rates set by idiotic councils looking to get income from any means other than raising council tax (car parking charges is another exploited area). Charity shops get relief from business rates, hence them taking over many empty premises. Sports/cricket shops were typically High Street based and have maybe been slow to explore other options as the environment changed over time.
2. An increase in the number of suppliers of cricket kit is almost always never bad for us as consumers. It leads to increased competition, which in turn leads to keener pricing at a range of quality levels, product innovation, better after sales service - essentially better value for money as already mentioned. However I would also say that if you've received good advice, fitting service etc from a retail shop, it is unfair to then go to another supplier, with a different cost base, to buy the product cheaper from there.
3. If buyers of cricket stuff pursue a sole strategy of "get what you can as cheap as you can" - and I've read that as getting a certain specific make and model as cheap as possible as opposed to getting the cheapest possible generic item, then despite it being your right as a consumer to do this, we will be harming the retail cricket industry. For a variety of logical reasons, and sometimes in error, sellers will make transitory offers on items at prices that are not sustainable over the medium term and longer - which is why they are transitory. However, the ease in which we can identify these offers across many retailers via the internet together with the offer of online/remote selling enables us to complete our kit requirements throughout the year from a variety of retailers at these unsustainable prices. Good for you as an individual, but unsustainable for the industry if you always adopt that approach, and "you" becomes "we".
Just a quick reply to point 1, the high street has been very well looked after by the current government regarding business rate relief, they have increased the business relief to double of what the previous government limit was. Also this year has been an incredible year for cricket retail, the biggest issue we had was lack of stock. Going forward, nearly all manufacturers have increased their prices, and also have included additional costs to us including freight charges.
Generally the biggest killer to our margins are the clowns that discount a brand new product , before they even have it, which is madness. Sadly we then have to try and follow suit.
( also having seen the older accounts from ijc, rent wasn’t the issue )
Author
Topic: Its Just Cricket... (Read 6751 times)