The Power of Collaboration
Written for Gifts Today
In February I wrote an opinion piece for Gifts Today in which I argued that trade show exhibitors, visitors, and organisers should make 2024 the year in which all parties come together to work for the good of the High Street, and our home and gift sector specifically - and that this might start with a concerted effort to make in-person trade shows unmissable again. As it happens, for the past nine months I’ve had the honour and pleasure to chair the Advisory Board for Spring and Autumn Fair, which represents a true collaboration between the shows’ organiser Hyve Group, exhibitors, buyers, and trade associations. The Board initially focused on using stakeholder feedback to drive improvements to the exhibitor and buyer experience at Autumn Fair, with the results feeding into a true celebration in 2025, when Spring Fair marks its 75th anniversary.
As part of the improved buyer experience, Stephen Spencer + Associates partnered with Autumn Fair to deliver the Ambience Clinic: a walk-in, curated space, adjacent to the Buyers’ Lounge, where visitors were offered the opportunity to meet with an expert to discuss a range of topics to help maximise revenue and return on investment. My team of ‘Ambience Clinicians’ and I, armed only with our decades of experience in retail and related sectors, were delighted - and at times moved - to meet a wide range of business leaders with an equally wide range of often heartfelt and at times distressing issues: covering both challenges faced and opportunities missed, and yet often involving a fairly simple reframe or fresh approach; easier for an outsider to highlight.
So, what did we discover? Simply, that there is a wealth of talent in our retail sector and that, as I’ve long suspected, and argued, it is the new talent that both clearly represents the future of our industry and needs to be nurtured. The approach of taking our combined expertise, in everything from brand communications and product development to e-commerce and logistics, to Autumn Fair and making it freely available to the sector was hugely rewarding and, I believe, important.
If there was a single challenge that stood out it was that many entrepreneurs have great products, great energy, and great customer experience focus, and yet are struggling to make an impression because they are not telling their story with sufficient clarity and coherence. From an importer of beautiful giftware whose brand name is formed of an ancient word meaning (if you happen to speak that particular ancient language) ‘flower and song’; and a cool bookshop, seeking to be a community hub in a rural market town but with an ambiguous name; to a fashion store whose brand suggested an ambience far removed from the reality, we revealed that the hardest part of retailing is having the ability to stand out, with a clear proposition, delivered in every interaction, to a defined audience who will fall in love with the brand, and whom we must obsess on and never disappoint.
Having a great product range, or a shop selling great products, does not mean you will be successful. I recently watched, somewhat helplessly, as a gorgeous fresh produce store in my home town opened and closed down within three months. I had predicted as much, as from the outside, through to the delivery of the customer experience, the store’s execution of its brand was highly incongruous.
In summary, the power of collaboration was in evidence at Autumn Fair, and the Ambience Clinic (just one of a range of initiatives introduced at the show), represented a vital addition to the in-person show experience: a fast, effective, and pragmatic route for businesses to tap into a deep well of relevant experience and expertise, delivered with sympathy and objectivity. As retail entrepreneur Theo Paphitis has shown with his Small Business Sunday business network, and as the Ambience Clinic demonstrated, just as our entire sector is founded on the idea that it is more blessed to give than to receive, its future is almost certainly based on that approach too.