Get your House in order if you want to survive

I’M sure the staff at House of Fraser in Belfast heaved a sigh of relief when they discovered their store wasn’t on the hit-list. But they cannot be complacent. If the current restructuring does not do the trick then who knows what the future holds.

So where has House of Fraser gone wrong? I spoke to a shopping expert who has spent much of her life pouring my money into department stores to help boost their profits. My wife.

She makes three important points that I pass on here free of charge:

POINT NUMBER 1: House of Fraser – let’s call it HOF because my fingers are getting tired tapping out the name – is a concession store, so it’s like lots of different shops under one roof. That’s OK if you know what you want and which section of the store to get it from.

But if you are not sure, if you need a bit of help finding something, then you are pretty much stuffed because there is no-one with an over-arching view of everything in the building.

Ask for help in M&S and any member of staff will give it to you because everything there is M&S. But in HOF staff work in their own little sections and do not necessarily know what’s going on anywhere else. So a request for help can frequently result in some vague hand gesture towards another concession.

What HOF needs is floor managers who know everything, like Grace Brothers in Are You Being Served? Are you free Captain Peacock? Yes, I’m free.

POINT NUMBER 2: My wife says you can be invisible in HOF if you are not carrying the right handbag or are not a certain age.

She thinks the staff pretty much ignore particular shoppers in favour of more fashionconscious (and, erm, slimmer) young things with their (probably fake) designer bags.

Yet these invisible shoppers probably have more disposable income because they’ve got rid of their offspring (not killed them, you understand, just got them educated and into jobs) and started their employment career in the days when firms and governments paid a living wage.

So HOF is missing a trick by concentrating on millennials with no money instead of more slightly mature shoppers with a bit of cash. Unfortunately, most of the staff are millennials, too. They don’t see Women With Disposable Incomes And High Credit Ratings. They see Middle-aged Women Who Dress Like Mrs Slocombe.

POINT NUMBER 3: It’s quicker and easier and cheaper to shop online. Well, we all know this, don’t we. It’s like another industrial revolution but one that is turning the High Street into a wasteland and glueing us to our screens for hours every day. .

In the case of HOF, the website has more choice and better deals. And you don’t have to pay the extortionate charges in Victoria Square car park. No wonder the stores are practically empty.

HOF has to find a way to reward shoppers who make the effort to visit the physical locations, instead of giving the best deals and the best choices to those who tap on their keyboards.

So, that’s three suggestions to turn the business around, Mr Fraser. Now get your House in order.