Back again for the eighth consecutive year, Progressive Party Europe is delighted to be able to bring you the full results of the retail survey, our exclusive end-of-year report. Once again, we’ve picked your brains and crunched the resulting numbers accordingly, giving a snapshot of the party industry in 2017.
It’s been an eye-opening process, with retailers speaking openly and honestly about how the past year has been for them – and for many of them, how close they have come to closing their doors for good. It will come as no real surprise to anyone on the front line of retail to hear it confirmed that 2017 has been a tough year. This has been reflected in the figures, with only 13% of independent party retailers reporting that their sales had grown over the last year.
However, independent retailers don’t take these things laying down and are fighting back wherever possible. A full 100% of respondents reported that they have increased their use of social media, engaging with potential customers wherever possible and taking advantage of one of the only things you really can get for free in this day and age.
Staying online, the area where retailers saw the most positive effect across their business this year was in developing websites to help drive traffic and sales to the shop. This was closely followed by the boost given by licensed product and films (the Star Wars effect?).
Balloons retained their position at the top spot in terms of retailers best-selling product areas, while Halloween and Book Week were the most key occasions for the costume industry. Despite this, Halloween was widely considered a disappointment with 67% of respondents reporting that their business had decreased.
It’s been a challenging year across UK retail and it’s clear that the party market reflects that, with retailers rightly concerned about the rise of internet retailing and ongoing Brexit uncertainty.
For more analysis and to see the information in greater detail, turn to page 21 of the latest issue of Progressive Party Europe – it makes for some very interesting reading.
