Three more city centre premises close doors
WITH three more city centre shops having brought down the shutters this week, a local businessman has come up with a novel idea to boost trade – introduce occasional VAT free shopping on Saturdays, especially on big sporting weekends.
And he has received the support of Limerick Chamber.
With the closure this week of two Cruises Street premises- Evans and Dorothy Perkins, and the announcement from 3G, who had a presence in Arthur’s Quay that they are to close their Irish outlets- the need to offer attractive incentives to draw shoppers into the city’s retail outlets is more acute than ever. Another casualty is Falks lighting premises on Henry Street, which is to close at the end of January.
There are concerns that further closures will follow.
Said the businessman, who did not wish to be identified: “We must create good, strong incentives to get people to come into town – once a person leaves the house and is in the city, he or she will spend – initially maybe just a coffee and muffin, but with stores offering real value, in terms of removing VAT on goods once a month, as well as quarterly reductions to get rid of stock, the message would be out there, that the city is offering great value – up to 21% reductions to the customer. Such an incentive would get shoppers into town and get the tills ringing”.
He claimed that such incentives are not unusual in the United States.
He pointed out that shop owners could absorb VAT themselves and still make a profit. “They would only have to pay VAT on the selling price of the goods over the counter”.
Referring to the “massive hits to the retail sector in the city,” Limerick Chamber chief executive, Maria Kelly, said that in the current economic climate where people are earning less and spending less, “anything that will help boost the city retail sector, is worth supporting.
“It would take all the retailers to come together on this and work on it, but the Chamber would be very happy to work with everyone concerned on this – it’s a very proactive idea to get people spending in the city,” she told the Limerick Post.
“I feel that in the first quarter of this year we are facing a few more closures – it is going to be a tough start to 2010, but I sense we will start to come out of it in the second and third quarters of the year.
“It’s a great pity that the Opera Centre development has been stalled – it will go to NAMA (Anglo Irish Bank had a 50% stake in the venture), but it is one of those developments that has a great deal going for it and I feel it will be reactivated”.
