Mary Portas will urge retailers to rebuild relationships with customers to address a “new era, The Kindness Economy.” Mary will appear on the Inspiring Retail Stage at Spring Fair (NEC Birmingham February 2-5 2020) on Tuesday February 4 at 2pm.
The retail guru, broadcaster and consumer champion will be speaking in conversation with Ashley Armstrong, retail editor at The Times,.
Mary will discuss how businesses, particularly those on the high street, must adopt kinder ways of behaving. Drawing on her personal philosophy honed over a lifetime’s experience of working in retail, she will outline her manifesto for change and her belief that we must make retail a better place to work for everyone.
Mary comments: “Big retailers will give you many reasons why the high street is failing – the internet, economic climate, Brexit – but the biggest reason is that as people and consumers, we’ve changed our value system. We’ve realised that the old system of ‘more equals better’, is not going to be better for us as people or for our planet. The fact is, old-school consumer culture, reducing people to what they buy rather than who they are, is dying. And businesses that were set up to feed that beast are crumbling.”
She continues: “This new era, The Kindness Economy, is going to be about sentience. It’s going to be about care, respect and understanding the implications of what we are doing.”
Julie Driscoll, regional director for Spring & Autumn Fair at Hyve Group enthuses: “It’s such a treat to be welcoming Mary to Spring Fair once again! From her beginnings working for John Lewis, Harrods and Topshop, to the publication of her latest book Work Like a Woman, Mary’s career has rejected complacency and rejuvenated stale retail practices at every turn. She’s a trailblazer to whom the UK retail sector owes a great debt for its continued success.”
* To register for Spring Fair go to https://bit.ly/33X4nkE
Top: Mary in conversation at Autumn Fair 2019.
