retaiil news

Q1 retail sales show full effects of the ‘Beast from the East’

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

New research into retail sales in the first part the year have revealed the full extent of the disruption caused by March’s ‘Beast from the East’ on the retail industry.

The latest figures from the retail representative group, Retail Excellence Ireland (REI), show that despite the improving economy, like-for-like sales were down 1.2 per cent in March, and a fifth of 1 per cent overall in the first quarter compared to the year previous. This decline comes despite the improving economy and a comparative boost to first-quarter sales by Easter falling in March, compared to April in 1017.

REI’s chief executive, David Fitzsimons, said the bad weather negatively impacted most on the 19 retail sectors examined in its first-quarter Productivity Review, which it produces in association with research firm GfK and Grant Thornton. It collates electronic sales data directly from the tills of retailers. “What is very clear is that the Irish retail industry is in a significant state of flux,” he said.

In terms of specific sectors, garden centres performed the worst, with sales down 15.8% in the first three months of the year when compared to 2017- for obvious weather-related reasons. IT and computing products saw a 17 per cent decline but were saved from a further fall by the early Easter period. IT sales, including computers and tablets, have dropped off hugely. In volume terms they were down 11% and 17 per cent in value terms Jewellery sales were down for all three months in the quarter, as were lingerie, ladieswear and menswear sales.

Among the best performing sectors were health stores (up 4%), small home appliances (up 6%) and furniture and flooring (up 3.6 % over the quarter). Grocery sales were up 1.1% which was “spurred on by Easter trading”, said Mr Fitzsimons. The rate of monthly growth in the sector actually increased in March, which may well have been partly due to bread sales.

New 134 room hotel planned for Galway

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

Press Up Entertainment, Ireland’s largest and fastest growing pub and restaurant group, are said to have acquired a site in Galway with planning permission for a 134-bedroom hotel.

The site is located near Prospect Hill received planning permission for a hotel last year following an application by Highgate Properties. It is understood Press Up paid €4.5 million for the land. In addition to the bedrooms, there is permission for two bars within the building, which will ultimately have a total gross floor area of 5,310sq m. The acquisition comes as Press Up eye opportunities to expand into the UK market in the near future.

Press Up is the largest restaurant and venue group in the country and the group behind well-known restaurants such as Captain America’s, Roberta’s and the Dean Hotel. Press Up, which last year had a turnover of about €52 million, has said it hopes to open at least nine new hospitality venues over the coming year, including the Devlin hotel in Ranelagh, Dublin, which will open in the summer.

The group is also reported to be developing a 140-bedroom hotel in Cork. It is also planning a revamp of former private members’ club Residence on St Stephen’s Green, which it purchased recently. In addition, Press Up will soon open a cocktail bar in a three-storey building on Dublin’s Aungier Street, which company documents suggest will be called The Dutch Billy. The group’s other recent purchases include the well-known Elephant & Castle restaurant business in Temple Bar.

Common Interview Questions for Buyers

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

Buying is a highly competitive industry, meaning it’s crucial to ace the interview for the position you are going for. Excel’s Sarah Hurley takes the most common interview questions and how to tackle them.

Due to the size of the retail market in Ireland, there are limited Buying opportunities. Therefore, if you secure an interview, it is important that you build a strong case in order to land the job. Buyers hold a unique skill set so you will need to demonstrate this and relevant experience by giving your personal professional examples when answering their questions.

Tell me about your current area of buying responsibility?

To answer this question successfully, you will start off by giving the interviewer an overview of your department, what you buy and what that involves. Be prepared with your facts and figures and use this question as an opportunity to highlight any successes you and your team have had such as increased sales, increased sell-through rates or improved margins etc. You don’t have to talk actual sales figures but do give percentages if possible, ‘We traded up 5% on plan and reduced mark down by 8% year on year’.

What are your thoughts on the current range? Would do you anything differently?

The interviewer is looking for you to think commercially and critically, and to see that you’ve done your homework. Use your insights into the brand and their competitors to spot any gaps or missed opportunities within the range and explain your reasoning. Make informed suggestions by visiting stores beforehand and/or critiquing the range online and make reference to current trends, what competitors are doing, and what is happening in the wider market.

Who are our main competitors?

This question is to test your understanding of the retail market and where the business sits within this. Consider their customer, and what makes them shop with them over elsewhere. What does the business do better and worse than their competitors? Please keep criticism to a minimum and also be able to explain your thought process with actual examples. For any retail buying job, prepare by researching the market, who the big players are, any recent news (like an acquisition or merger), whose market share is increasing, whose is decreasing, etc. Ensure you discuss competitors operating within the same space and with the same customer base and aesthetic as the company you’re interviewing with. For example, if you are interviewing with Dunnes Stores, you will always talk about a business like Tesco as their direct competitor.

Tell me about some of your biggest negotiating successes?

A major part of any buying job is daily negotiation. Use real-life examples and demonstrate your ability to get the best commercial results for the business, while still maintaining a positive relationship with stakeholders inside and out of the business.

Other Common Questions for Buyer Interviews include:

Common Interview Questions for Buyers

 

Job vacancies in hotel sector increased 200% in last five years

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

Job vacancies in the hotel sector have increased by almost 200% from 2013- 2017 according to jobs.ie

The job board said demand for key hotel roles such as hotel chef, bartenders, waiters, receptionists, porters, cocktail mixologists and concierges have all increased hugely. Every role has experienced growth in the last five years, particularly since 2016. Vacancies for hotel chefs increased by 149 percent over the five-year period and although vacancies were down by 9pc in 2017 compared to 2016, the number remains high. Hotel bartending, mixologist and concierge vacancies all soared by 80 percent in 2017 compared to just the year before.

Ireland’s hotel sector has demonstrated remarkable resilience,” said Christopher Paye, general manager of jobs.ie. Despite a drop in visitors and revenue from the crucial British market, 2016 proved to be a turning point for the sector, thanks to rising numbers of tourists from the rest of Europe, North America and Asia. Paye continues, “However, there is a mounting risk that demand for workers will outstrip supply, and this is already proving the case for chefs,” and he warns the growth of Ireland’s tourism industry will be “short-lived” if the skills shortages are left unaddressed.

The hospitality sector is worth €7.2bn to the Irish economy and supports an estimated 235,000 jobs. There was welcome news for the sector last week when Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys announced changes to employment permit regulations which saw the removal of certain chef grades from the ineligible occupation list. These changes will make it easier to source chefs from outside the European Economic Area.

Meanwhile, hotel group Dalata has said it expects to add some 300 jobs in Ireland this year thanks to the opening of three new hotels, two in Dublin and one in Cork. The new properties are expected to open by the end of the year.

Hospitality industry welcomes relaxed work permits for chefs

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

The hospitality industry has welcomed changes to work permit regulations that aim to make it easier to hire chefs from outside the European Union.

The changes remove some chef grades from the ineligible occupation list, meaning that if an employer has difficulty filling a vacancy they can look outside the EU for a suitably qualified person. The grades that were taken off the ineligible list include executive, head and sous chefs with a minimum of five years’ experience at that level, and chefs de partie, with a minimum of two years’ experience at that level. A quota will apply to the scheme, with a limit of two general employment permits per establishment and an overall quota of general employment permits of 610.

The decision was signed off by Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys. Speaking about the decision she said, “My decision to remove certain chef grades from the ineligible lists will ensure that there is a mechanism to address the shortage of qualified chefs in the short term,” she said. “I have applied a quota to ensure that in the longer term the demand for chefs is met from a steady supply in the Irish labour market and, to that end, I am aware of the work that is underway to increase the supply of chefs through training initiatives such as the development of a new commis chef apprenticeship and a chef de partie apprenticeship.”

The Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) welcomed the changes. “The hospitality industry in Ireland has been under significant strain in recent years in regard to staffing, and allowing more skilled professionals to enter the industry can only encourage further growth in this sector,” said Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the RAI. “The Restaurants Association of Ireland has been lobbying on this issue since 2012. There is an urgent need for 7,000 chefs per year to service our industry.”

The RAI previously warned the shortage of chefs was growing at a rate of 3,000 per year due to a lack of training places, and it had called on the Government to relax the work permit restrictions. The association claimed the shortage was limiting the expansion of the hospitality industry.

 

Retailers deal with aftermath of Storm Emma

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

As the thaw continues, retailers around the country are counting the cost of the last week’s weather disruption where heavy snowfall and the Red Weather Alerts saw many forced to close their doors from Wednesday. Some businesses have still not re-opened in the aftermath of the severe weather.

Lorraine Higgins, deputy chief executive of Retail Excellence Ireland, said different sectors experienced varying degrees of disruption. “The focus on grocery purchases meant that purchases in other sectors were postponed. Huge losses were incurred as a consequence of being closed for five days. It’s the loss of sales, employee costs and general clean-up costs that they are facing now,” she explained. Ms Higgins said retailers are now trying to encourage footfall back into their stores after several days of closures and some quiet days over the weekend. “Retailers who had an e-commerce capacity were advertising online quite heavily. It’s been a difficult time for many sectors so I’d be encouraging people to go out and support retailers with a physical store presence and divert some of the spend from businesses overseas to retailers here.”

According to Miss Higgins, the big winners from spending in the online sphere are overseas retailers that do not have a physical presence here, with an estimated two-thirds of spending online by Irish consumers leaving the country. “Many discerning retailers with an online capacity here had sales of 15-20% to encourage people to spend online over the past few days. But that comes at the expense of heavy advertising,” she said. “What this points to is the need for retailers to have ‘omnichannel strategies.’ They’re becoming increasingly important in light of the frequency of recent weather events,” Lorraine Higgins concluded.

The heavy snow presented numerous challenges for grocery stores, which saw huge demand for fresh food in supermarkets over the weekend. Retail group BWG Foods has revealed a Brennan’s Sliced Pan was the number one item in demand over the last few days, followed by litres of milk, 6 packs of eggs, firelighters and wine.

IHF Conference- The Key Take Home Points

Posted on | by admin

Not even the looming threat of the Beast from the East could put a damper on the success of the Irish Hotel Federation’s annual conference last week. Held in the Slieve Russell Hotel, the conference included a fantastic line-up of speakers, interesting insights and informative discussions. General Manager of Excel Recruitment Shane Mclave talks through the main talking points from the event.

2017 success for the industry

There was plenty of positivity new stories from the event. According to IHF chief executive Tim Fenn, 2017 was another strong year for Irish hotels and guesthouses and the seventh year in a row that overseas visitor numbers have grown. The average national room occupancy rate was 73% during the year, a figure driven by a substantial increase in visitor numbers from the US and continental Europe, as well as from the domestic market. This was welcome news for hoteliers and helped to offset the drop in visitors from the UK, where numbers continue to fall. Fenn asserted that the outlook for the sector remains positive with hoteliers confident about the future growth of the tourism and hospitality industry.

Craic alone not enough for tourism

Niall Gibbons of Tourism Ireland also discussed the dramatic drop in British visitors and said “the craic” won’t be enough to recover plummeting visitor numbers. Mr Gibbions said Ireland must hone in on outdoor activities to entice visitors from Great Britain, which is the country’s biggest tourism market. Visitor numbers from Britain have fallen steadily since the Brexit referendum vote in June 2016 and dropped 6% last year to 4.7 million visits. As a result, tourism officials have focused more on opening up ‘emerging’ markets like India and China and winning more business from North America and mainland Europe. Tourism chiefs are hoping to look beyond traditional boozy holidays and hope to win more business in the activities market. Daragh Feighery who will be opening the much anticipated Center Parcs in Longford gave us a sneak peek at what is in store for what will be a huge jewel in the crown for the Midlands with over 1000 staff in employment once the doors are open to the public mid-2019

End to the Chef Crisis in sight?

One of the most exciting talking points from the conference came from TD Brendan Griffin, Minister for State and Tourism. The TD casually mentioned that changes to work regulations for work permits are on the cards for 2018, potentially easing the country’s chef shortage. The statement was met with huge support and enthusiasm from all, particularly hoteliers and business owners all too familiar with the struggle of recruiting and retaining chefs.

Nikki Murran, Excel Recruitment's Director of Grocery Retail Recruitment

Grocery Retail Salary Survey 2018- The Bullet Points

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

Excel Recruitment are delighted to present our 2018 Grocery Retail Salary Survey with full salary scales for the grocery sector. 2017 was most definitely an interesting year for retail and recruitment. In this blog, Head of Grocery Nikki Murran discusses the main findings and their impact on the industry.

 

Candidate’s Market and Counter Offers

The economy is growing, wages are rising and the unemployment rate is currently sitting at 6.1%. This is obviously great news but in recruitment terms, it means we are definitely seeing a shift towards a candidate’s market. The competition for top talent is fierce and counter-offers are becoming more and more frequent, with employers working hard to keep talented staff.

Minimum Wage

The increase in minimum wage in January has had a significant impact on the entire grocery retail industry. We have witnessed incremental increases across the industry as the minimum wage hike has caused a knock-on effect across all levels of junior staff in the trade.

Young Talent

Another noticeable side-effect of the recent economic growth is the distinct pattern of young talent leaving retail in favour of other industries. These workers, mainly at trainee level, are often college-educated and eager to pursue a career in their field of study. Others are leaving as they are turned off pursuing a retail career by the idea of long-hours and unsociable shifts or simply don’t see enough progression in their current role.

Fresh Food

In the industry in the area of fresh foods, particularly for Deli Managers, Deli Supervisors, Fresh Food Managers, Bakers and Butchers. It’s an interesting time for fresh foods, with a renewed excitement and passion for the category visible across the industry. Savvy retailers are focused on energising, innovating and expanding their offering and we are seeing a substantial investment in fresh food talent as a result.

To view the Salary Survey and its findings in full, click here.

 

 

Call for government support for retailers in fight against online giants

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

Retail Excellence Ireland has called for State support for retailers as it was revealed 60% of Irish online spending in 2017 went to foreign retailers.

Lorraine Higgins of Retail Excellence Ireland said the threat posed to Irish retailers by online operations overseas has been growing for more than a decade. The retail representative body is concerned that unless some level of State-intervention is implemented, many indigenous businesses that make the Republic’s retail space unique would shut.

According to Ms Higgins, “Consumers see a huge price differential between online and bricks and mortar shops, but many of the prices that we see online do not include VAT or duty and seem much cheaper. Around two-thirds of consumer spending is leaving the country every single day, and that presents a massive challenge to the retail industry and to Revenue.”

Less than 30 per cent of Irish retailers have an e-commerce capability on their websites, and 22 per cent have no online presence at all. According to Retail Excellence Ireland the numbers highlight the size of the challenge many retailers face if they are to survive, and she called for State support for small enterprises seeking to build websites to compete against overseas competitors. The calls came in the wake of the closure last month of a branch of the Walton’s music shop on Dublin’s South Great George’s Street.

Thomas Burke, director of Retail Ireland, the Ibec umbrella group for the industry was cautiously optimistic about the future, “I see it as a glass half full kind of situation. Shopping is not just the transaction, it is a past time and it is a social activity, and I think retailers need to take advantage of that fact they do not have to just go toe-to-toe with the big online retailers on price and can offer something a bit different.”

Salary Series 2018- Chef Salaries

Posted on | by admin

Excel Recruitment are delighted to release our 2018 Salary Survey. Our Salary Survey covers all aspects of the Hospitality Industry including Hotel, Chef and Industrial and corporate Catering salaries. In a series of blog posts, Excel’s expert team give their take on the year ahead and the factors affecting salaries in each industry. In To view our Hotel and Catering Salary Survey in full click here. To get General Manager Shane’ McLave’s take on hotel salaries and the effects of Brexit, click here.

The Irish hospitality sector’s chef crisis continued to dominate industry news and discussion last year, a nowhere near new phenomenon that looks to set to continue right through 2018. Businesses of all levels, shapes and sizes are continuing to struggle to attract, recruit and retain a quality of chefs at all levels. While there is much back on forth on about the issue and many solutions suggested, such as re-instating Cert qualifications or promoting apprenticeships, it needs to be stressed that much of the issue is centred around the industry standard pay rates for chefs.

The Average

Chef pay rates are again going up but they are still well short of the average industrial wage which is €36,000 per annum. In most establishments, chefs have to manoeuvre themselves into a management position in order to achieve that salary. The increase in minimum wage which came into effect in January will further highlight the issue as hourly rates above this will be expected to increase in line with the 30c increase to the minimum wage.

The Solution?

There are exceptions, as we are seeing savvy operators within the Hotel and Restaurant sector offering very attractive packages to attract and keep talented chefs. They can see by increasing the salaries they are seeing the benefits of a higher calibre of staff, greater retention and a lower turnover in talent. Retaining staff will be a major objective of businesses in 2018 as recruitment looks set to remain a highly competitive, candidate’s market. We’re already seeing business work hard at this through a mixture of reward and progression.