Daily Mail retail opportunity - urgent

ended 14. October 2021

One of our pals at the Mail Online is after some quick comment from small retail businesses. The British Retail Consortium says a survey of retailers has shown that three in five expect prices to go up over the next three months. Are any of you expecting to have to raise prices on your products before Christmas? This BBC News story today will give you a bit of background: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58904567. 

Keep your responses short and sweet - a few sentences MAX! Deadline is tight!

6 responses from the Newspage community

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Ruth Bradford
Owner/founder/creator at The Little Black & White Book Project
"I’m desperately holding off from being a Christmas grinch and keeping everything the same but come the new year it’ll be less about resolutions and more about resignation as I’ll have no choice but to adjust prices to accommodate ever-increasing material costs. For now, I don’t want to give shoppers even more reasons not to buy in an already tough market."
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Nathan Le-Moine
Director at Kiddiekin
"Reluctantly, we have already been forced into implementing price increases for our customers. As with many online retailers, we have been hit with increases from every angle: from higher cost of goods, to additional delivery surcharges. The balance between protecting profits and remaining competitive is becoming a real concern."
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Keisha Shah
Founder-Director at Teddo Play
"Being a small business, as much as we'd like to increase our product prices to cover these rising costs, there's just way too much at stake, so the only option we have at the moment is to absorb the costs in the hope to retain our customer base." "A classic example of 'having all eggs in one basket!' Covid has uncovered many flaws in our economic system. With a majority of the countries outsourcing manufacturing activities to China, we are seeing a domino effect at the moment on an enormous scale. Rising manufacturing costs, supply chain issues, delays, not enough inventory to sell during the busiest time of the year, the list is pretty extensive. We have remained fully designed and manufactured in the UK so we're not as badly affected but the rising cost of materials is inevitable."
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Craig Bunting
Co-founder at BEAR
"Price increases are always a contentious topic, but in reality, they shouldn't be. Brands are businesses, whether purpose-driven or not it is still business and pricing needs to reflect the true costs to ensure that the entire thing remains financially able to deliver its products, services and purpose. We will be working on pricing increases between now and Christmas, and probably into the new year as we begin to rebalance our model to reflect where the market is right now. The focus isn't to increase prices to make more money, the focus is to ensure what we have remains viable, so where there might be an increase in one sense, there might be reductions or a refocus on spending in other areas." Our aim is to deliver a great products, service and provide sustainable jobs long into the future.
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Dr Jackie Mulligan
Founder at ShopAppy.com
"Local independents are being hit yet again and often have less negotiating power and slimmer margins (due to tax, rates, rents) compared to the online giants. However many local indies have got strong localised supply chains and have bought stock in advance - we would urge people to buy local as independents are ensuring value for money, and buying local means that around 40% of your spend, whatever the price, is staying local. "
Kelly Smallcombe
Founder at Evolved Creative
"Prices are on the rise wherever we look these days, and a sustainable business fighting with fast fashion always gives a price battle. We will be holding off as long as possible to try and fight the price increase being passed onto our customers, and we hope that our amazing community will continue to support us as a small business."