Happy New Year - how was it for you?

Shopping trends around Christmas seem to have changed dramatically over the last 2 or 3 years, which makes humble retailers like me very nervous when it comes to guestimating what levels of stock to carry.

What we are seeing is a definite split in December. Early December seems to be internet time, whilst late December and in particular the last week before Christmas seems to be coming increasingly critical to the success of December as a whole for retailers. A case of having to hold your nerve.

Our experience was that in the first 2 weeks of December we were 10% down on the comparable period last year, however the final week and in fact the final day before Christmas turned this all around to see us improve by over 10% over the whole month, effectively a 20% swing in 7 days of trading.

There were some local issues, the weather wasn't great in early December, however we didn't open on any of the Sundays as we had done the previous year (I personally have a moral issue in this regard- but I guess I'm a bit old fashioned!) and only went for one late night shopping opening. On an Island like Jersey it proves to me that opening all the hours God gives you only serves to spread the same trade over a huge number of additional hours; is totally unnecessary and in my view destroys community.

What does it all prove? Well I reckon that if you're in the consumable business any credit crunch which results in consumer spending reducing should have a limited impact. I think that is what Marks and Spencer found, with their food side remaining strong, whilst their clothing suffered.

I think consumers are starting to revert to item they need, rather than want. However having said that there was a great interest in speciality coffees that are competitively priced. Our customers increasingly want to experiment with coffees they've never tried before. The key is education; storage issues, cleaning, warming, shelf life once opened etc.

We've also found that recommending the local Jersey full fat (yellow) milk for use in Cafetieres (French press) has also enhanced many of our customer's experience of our coffees. In fact I've had two people stop me in the street they were so pleased.

The future though for speciality retailers like us I believe ultimately lies in "localness" - the network of local small businesses working together to produce a unique offering of which the community is proud.

Quality, quality, quality