Retail sales in Malta falling the third fastest in the European Union
Published:
August 6, 2014 at 11:18am
Eurostat has published statistics this morning which show that Malta has registered the third largest drop in retail sales.
It is the fourth such consecutive downturn in five months, in sharp contrast to what is happening in the rest of Europe, where retail sales are picking up after the doldrums.
Don’t worry, though – I’m quite sure Martin Scicluna and Peter Apap Bologna will single-handedly keep our shops afloat with their generous spending.
And Sai Mizzi might be persuaded to fly back occasionally and spend some of her Taghna Lkoll salary in Valletta.
48 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
So good to hear. Everyone is getting what they voted for. The sky’s the limit when you internet shop. I’m just loving it.
Me too, Fran. I buy everything online. With customer care services in Malta being what they are I am so much better off shopping online with a much wider variety and no questions asked but money refunded immediately when you decide to return.
Martin Scicluna will disagree with my assessment, but here goes.
In Malta, unlike the other European economies, a fall in retail is not just a symptom of an economic slowdown, but a cause. Maltese economic activity is largely retail-driven. Imports satisfy internal supply and demand, and most of the GDP consists of money spent in Malta. On retail. I’ve been lobbying against this for ages, because it means we still haven’t joined the 21st century (or the EU, for that matter), but that’s by the by.
So a fall in retail means a fall in economic growth. This government, like its predecessors, will no doubt try to remedy that by introducing measures which “ihallu iktar flus fil-but”. Indeed. Helga Ellul, I am sure, is not a little irritated by Maltese economic small-mindedness.
But then she’s from the 21st century, and we’re from the Novecento, bless us.
Baxxter, a fall in consumption expenditure is both a cause and a symptom of economic slowdown anywhere in the world. The usage of the measure either as a symptom or a cause simply reflects the focus of analysis of whomever is writing.
Decreases mean that people are not spending their money in Malta. They are either saving or spending overseas or, worse still, not earning income. So decreases may also reflect a lack of competitiveness among local retailers, a lack of consumer confidence and drops in employment.
Sorry for sounding pedantic. Not my intention.
No Kevin, one of the major reasons is going past the middleman.
Which is why Grace Borg et al. have been hounding Edward Scicluna to take stock of internet trade.
Even the blessed Chamber of Commerce called for ‘stricter implementation’ of some fine EU print and disallow ‘imports from the continent via ferry and other unorthodox means’
In other words, bring back customs, that glass palaces called showrooms make sense. It’s where they stockpile their made in China rubbish, elbowing anyone with a different mindset out of the market. Pile ’em high, sell ’em not so cheap.
This is a place where lobbies just form spontaneously to resist any change. And isn’t that what Muscat did.
Stuck as he is trying to kickstart internal consumption when what he should be doing is create the right conditions for investment and employment. Which entrepreneurs required, I’m afraid, have all been compromised by their overdrafts and property stock.
The only thing he can see then as employment is even more gargantuan hypermarkets, parking places and apartments.
That’s all they have to offer.
No need to apologise, Kevin. You are right.
A fall in retail is never a cause or a symptom alone, but a bit of both. It’s just that in Malta, the economy is driven more by retail than by anything else, so a fall in consumption expenditure tends to be a cause more than a symptom.
Allow me to expound. If I had to give a snapshot of the Maltese economy at various times, it would be this:
1987-1996: Growth by consumption. We import stuff so we can sell it in Malta. This fuelled an explosion in retail outlets. The Businessman become the new National Hero. Government expenditure offset by spending on infrastructure to encourage even more retail.
1996-98: Retail, but also growth by taxation on this retail. A cack-handed attempt at taxation of imports.
1998-2003: A repeat of 1987-1996.
2003-2013: New government income in the form of EU funds, which are promptly spent on infrastructure to encourage even more retail. No attempt at economic growth through export or industry. Instead of industry, government goes for what it does best: legislation. On financial services mostly. Result: a few lawyers get super-rich. Income inequality grows, but is masked by increased consumption.
2013-present: New government income in the form of Chinese money. An explosion in public sector expenditure, which counts as GDP. Ergo, despite the increase in public debt, GDP grows more than ever. Again, no attempt at economic growth through export or industry. People expected massive wads of cash in their pockets. When cash did not materialise, they cut back on expenditure. Hence the fall in retail.
2014: One lonely voice (Helga Ellul) calling for a “pyramid” of economic activity, including industry. Largely ignored by everyone.
Josef
I might have not explained myself correctly.
The Internet is a significant part of what I meant when I said “people are not spending their money in Malta.” Shopping on the internet means that the money is being spent overseas. Money earned in Malta flows out of the local economy and results in shrinkage.
The usual Labour response (since time immemorial) is bulk buying and the construction of trade barriers while the EU lifts two fingers at that sort of protectionist policy.
The second reason I give – lack of competitiveness among local retailers – should have been clarified to emphasise the point that you are making – Muscat should be creating the right conditions for investment and employment. This last point touches on my reason – decreasing levels of employment. Indeed, public employment has increased by about 4 or 5% (when the Nats tried so very hard in reducing this overhead) while private sector employment has increased by only 2%.
To your suggestions I would add that Muscat et al should be focusing on enhancing competitiveness (not just productivity) AND the novelty that could eventually constitute commercially successful innovation.
Kevin,
this place is, to all intents and purposes, a one way closed system.
Importation is considered an essential, soon turns into a social prerogative, never discussed, except in 2003.
And that was all about EU funds to make up for ‘competitiveness’. In the end everyone got rid of their plant and set up retail. Huge showrooms a front for their ramified interests.
Just take stock of who the most vocal ‘big boys’ are, you’ll notice they’re all geared to imports and with the tons of cash made, property speculators.
Or the other way round. Then they’ll blame Zaren Vassallo.
Inventiva isn’t of this place, anzi, it’s something to denigrate and when that doesn’t work, obstruct.
Politicians just serve the game. I’ll do a Baxxter here, but boy is he right, Nkabbru l-ekonomija u nkattru l-gid means two cars in the driveway, even when these can’t get you anywhere.
So the boutique hotel in Birgu went bust after eighteen months. And are you surprised?
What we’re scared of is the paradigm shift from monetary excess to wealth. Personal wealth a direct result of the urban environment, one we never aspired to.
HP,
Your assessment is correct. There is one another dimension to the problem that few people seem to know.
During the previous administration, particularly in the late 1990s and early 2000 when many of betting companies exited the UK en masse, a number of local telecoms operators attempted to convince the MFSA and local banks that one of the most significant revenue generator to the financial industry was electronic payment aggregation and processing.
Pleas to modify the law to encourage such financial services fell, mostly, on deaf ears. The result is that Malta lost out on a significant opportunity which, at the time, was ours for the taking. The result is a relatively large mass of betting companies all of whom process their multi-million revenue dollars overseas rather than through the local banks.
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I recently read the inevitable phrase “making Malta an e-commerce hub” uttered by one of the Labour ministers. For one, whoever it was (Owen Bonnici or Herrera?) has absolutely no clue and secondly it does not fit into the post 2013 strategy that you so aptly described.
The current government already implemented its flagship measure of “inhallu l-flus fi bwiet in-nies.” It said it has lowered the electricity tariffs to households by an average of 25%.
Well, it appears that it is not working. The households are not spending the money, which the government claims they have saved, on retail. Most probably the public is using more electricity, even though the power station which is supposed to create those savings is nowhere in sight as yet.
Meanwhile, the largest retail/commercial banks in Malta have reconfirmed that loans to business are not growing.
“Net loans and advances to customers were Eur 3,287 million, Eur 14 million lower than at 31 December 2013.”
– HSBC – Half yearly results for 2014, Statement to the Malta Stock Exchange, 4 August 2014.
“The period under review was characterised by weak demand for business credit, that was partly countered by robust demand for home loans. Growth in deposits far exceeded growth in lending, leading to increasing levels of liquidity.”
– Bank of Valletta – Interim Directors’ Statement to the Malta Stock Exchange for Q3 of 2014, 31 July 2014
The situation should be worrying, because it seems that customers are obtaining bank loans to buy property – possibly on the expectation of future salary earnings – but businesses are not taking new loans to expand the economy to provide for those future salary earnings. This could lead to the banks exposing themselves to risky home loans which only serve to raise property prices and drive a speculative bubble, without the correct economic fundamentals.
Malta’s inflation rate remains generally below 1% – even in June/July 2014, when the government did not announce any further reductions in water and electricity bills.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/malta/inflation-cpi
The ECB has warned that there is a risk that Eurozone will fall into deflation – inflation below 1% is a risk of deflation.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28583232
Allow me to copy and paste this three time:
businesses are not taking new loans to expand the economy
businesses are not taking new loans to expand the economy
businesses are not taking new loans to expand the economy
It’s THAT important, and you have put your finger on the alpha and omega of Maltese economic stupidity. Loans are taken to invest in non-wealth-creating assets. It’s a peasant economy with bourgeois money.
But it’s not European.
Helga Ellul spoke about this during the MEP campaign. But the stupid Nationalist Party chose to have her talk to a Xarabank-type audience so it was all above their heads.
U kif se jħalli l-flus fi bwiet il-klassi medja li ried joħloq?
Billi Edward Scicluna prattikament jiknes il-35% tat-taxxa fuq id-dividends u ma jghaddix it-taxxa lura lil-underdogs li kien tant iħobb qabel l-elezzjoni.
U it-taxxa ma kellux iniżżilha għal-32% u wara għal-29%.
Kif fuq il-website hemm li bqajna l-istess?
http://www.ird.gov.mt/services/taxrates.aspx#2014
Jista’ jfhemni xi ħadd?
Baxxter, I do not follow Helga Ellul very much, and I am not sure where her ideas are being explained publicly.
Malta has joined the EU over 10 years ago, but Malta is still not European in its mindset, so that must explain why you find that the thinking about investment is not European.
In Malta, ‘investment’ means ‘property.’ “Ghax il-gebla, hi, dik investiment.”
The problem I see is that the current government of Joseph Muscat seems to think that the economic growth will be driven by the construction industry. This is so much the thinking of the 1960s-1990s. But what do you expect when the governing party has Sandro Chetcuti of the Malta Developers Association as one of its volunteers with an office at its head office?
Hence another wave of a construction boom, they think. More investment into building stocks, hence more MEPA permits, hence the need for more high rises, more relaxed ODZ policy, and so on.
All this is doing is in fact concentrating the public’s savings to the one sector, leaving little or no space for efforts on other growth sectors of the economy.
My opinion is that the banks cannot afford to put more money into the construction industry, and I believe that my opinion is generally confirmed by the assessments of the Maltese banking sector and Malta’s economy as carried out by the international institutions and credit rating agencies.
If the construction industry is allowed to grow at the expense of a diversified economy, time will come when the government will have to step in to save the banks.
I am reminded of a recent article linked on this site from the Daily Mail, with an assessment of Tony Bliar. The article highlighted a number of traits about Bliar which are so similar to Joseph Muscat’s. I suspect that Muscat is copying Blair’s way of doing things here, including Bliar’s way of running the economy – into the ground.
Within 1 year from Blair’s resignation from prime minister, and while the economy was still directed by the same person who had served as Bliar’s Chancellor, the UK economy slumped into a depression.
Eventually, it took six years for the British economy to recover to the same levels of 2008 – officially, this recovery has been confirmed a couple of weeks ago:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28479902
And even then, not all sectors have recovered equally.
Six lost years for an economy ranked among the largest globally. Those years were lost due to the economic principles, or total lack of them, as practiced by the Bliar government, in which the economy was fuelled by low interest rates and speculation in the property sector, helped by a deregulated and greedy financial sector.
After the ‘good years,’ a number of banks had to be bailed out, others taken over by the Gordon Brown government.
In the meanwhile, Britain had lost most of its manufacturing sector.
While I would love to blame the government for this, I think the problem is a bit more endemic than that. Retailers in Malta are simply not catching up with the times and can’t keep competing with foreign retailers.
It’s so easy to order anything online and with services such as SendOn it’s expanded even to shops that normally doesn’t deliver to Malta.
Last Christmas we probably sourced at least 80% of our gifts from foreign retailers. It’s just more convenient, better options and the prices can’t be matched, even when you add the extra shipping costs.
The problem shop-owners are facing is that they need a reality check.
Sales are down. No PN opposition group is required to make us Maltese aware. I sensed it at the beginning of the year when the January sales kept on till the end of March. The summer 2014 stock was displayed in April with the winter stock still hanging on the racks waiting for some good souls to spin the shopping wheel.
It’s sale-time all year round but the reality is that people aren’t interested in shopping in Malta.
Times have changed so drastically that shop-owners have not been given the chance to hope that the economy will pick up.
Pick up? It’s heading downwards and the sooner they wake up, the better it will be for them as I for one, will not be buying anything.
I’m sure many have realised this long before I did and used their cash wisely and took their shopping preferences elsewhere.
I may have realised long after those before me did, but in any case, the way I sense it is this: there’s no going back.
It truly is a case of no return.
And that’s how we should be talking.
Otherwise we’ll have Bisazza Street opened and closed to traffic ad aeternum.
And Valletta remains jewellery inc. during the day and a tacky Mdina at night.
But that’s where the greatest of taboos comes in; do away with those ruddy rent laws.
How on earth is this possible, when people have made such terrific savings on petrol and gas cylinders?
Retail outlets compete with online purchases nowadays. Furthermore in Malta , the concept of competition as far as owners of small retail outlets are concerned is opening a dozen pizzerias next door to each other. Same goes for stationeries, clothes shops, shoe shops, flower shops and perfumeries.
They can open as many as they like. If I get a better deal and a better price, and if the items I need can wait, I’ll shop online or wait patiently till my travels take me out of the Maltese shores.
One has to be totally out of his mind to shop around in Malta especially since there’s a total sense of financial insecurity that may have always existed as some might argue but of late, it seems to be heading downhill.
May I also add, it’s not just the financial insecurity that’s a cause for concern but also the country’s general situation.
Given the amount of burglaries that have taken place since April this year, I don’t blame people who live close to the shopping areas and who refuse to shop as they’d have to leave their home; they fear that they’ll be burgled, mugged or robbed off their hard-earned belongings.
This is really what is happening as soon as they leave their home unattended or go out to enjoy a meal with friends in the evening.
Biex ninftiehem: Qed jissakkru gewwa.
You can tell a lot about a country’s general sense of insecurity when people start telling you they are feeling insecure within their own home and out of it.
Hear hear.
Marketing research in Malta is just seeing who’s got good sales and rushing to sell the same.
And if a young bright girl comes up with an idea, they’ll send the police to inspect her soap and call it a health risk.
If there’s one thing I miss, it’s browsing Milan’s Corso Genova, Solferino, Brera, everyone doing their bloody best to be utterly different.
Imagine a shop where the owner insists on selling paintings of his pug with some other animal. You just have to walk by to check the week’s special.
Paris is a nightmare for someone like me, it’s equivalent to six Milans.
And if there’s a place which never fails to surprise me, it’s Palermo. There’s this torrefazione cafe’ below San Cataldo, the air saturated a block away.
and ice cream shops!
I used to be a good shopper but not anymore. The shops aren’t as populated with enthusiastic shoppers as they used to be and that alone gives me a lonely shopper feeling.
This apart there’s nothing as interesting as the things I usually see abroad, online and at 75% less the prices here. I’d be stupid to even bother looking around unless I’d be desperate for some particular item.
The shops here have lost me as their customer and this is saying quite a lot considering that I’d spend it blindly when times were happier and different in Malta.
No more, No way!
Maltese shops are absolutely ugly. Unless they’re ‘luxurious’, read vulgar.
And the goods are way overpriced. Ever tried shopping at M&S in Malta and in the UK? And don’t even get me started on sporting and outdoor equipment. Eurosport, anyone? Adventure Camping?
(Before anyone pounces on me for patronising M&S, know that there is no such thing as bespoke Y-fronts.)
Seriously Jozef, the shopping climate depends on people’s state of mind. If they are happy, and feeling secure is part of being happy – people will shop till they drop.
And isn’t that a reciprocal process, an interface?
As for binge shopping, and the attitude that shoppers are there exclusively to turn stock over, maybe that’s part of the problem.
Shopping? If you want value for money shop at LIDL. They have improved their service a lot, and no delicatessen counters where expiry dates are not always respected.
LIDL has given food distributors and other supermarket chains a run for their money.
If you want to purchase good clothes at reasonable prices while on holiday go to Primark.
On-line shopping is another option where people at work pool in one shopping list from a catalogue and are charged for the shipping once. Goods are received on the doorstep of the organiser.
More reason to befriend China, then.
I think the shops can put the blame on themselves here. Every time I try to buy something here it’s either out of stock or more expensive. Why bother waiting 5-6 weeks to wait for their shipment when you can something in 5-6 days
I don’t know much about the economy but I know one thing: Maltese shopkeepers and retailers are fleecing us alive. I am no stranger to online shopping. I even bought curtain material online since I could not find anything here which matched my vision for the room.
Anyway, an example of my “being-fleeced-alive-by-Maltese-traders” theory, is the following: I needed a spare part of an appliance which, I reasoned, would not cost an eye and a tooth. I dutifully called at the trader’s outlet and asked for the price of the part. The princely sum of Euro 65 was quoted for something which I expected to be much cheaper.
Anyway, I wondered whether I would find it online. And I did, at Euro22.
I was so surprised that I ended up spending some Euro 120 on different accessories for the appliance which the Maltese trader did not even bother to get for the Maltese market.
I was shocked at the mark-up. Truth be told, I used to look around to try to buy from Malta to help our fellow Maltese but, quite frankly, most of them are abusing their factual (and sometimes contractual) monopolies. Hence my resolve to try to buy everything online has only strengthened and if I can, I do not buy anything from here.
Thank God for the European Union and the EU Free Market that we are part of.
We can all buy online and have our items delivered to the door and not frustrate ourselves with looking for a place to park and waste money on a shit cappuccino delivered by a sulking rude waitress.
Maltese retailers hate competition.
Exactly.
We always lag behind and remember we are good savers.
As much as I have enjoyed reading your submissions, people, can anybody enlighten me, as a retailer myself, on two things.
How many of you actually run a retail business and secondly, how would you go about becoming more competitive against such gargantuan companies as Amazon etc.
Please do keep in mind that we can never ever compete in certain sectors against internet.
For some people it’s just a thrill and a sort of adrenalin rush to buy online.
I can give loads of examples of people purchasing stuff online, which they could have gotten cheaper in Malta.
You ought to be behind a counter to experience these situations like myself. You get to a situation where you just give up. A classic example: my son buying an item online, which I sell at my shop for at least 10% cheaper plus a 2 year guarantee. Need I say more?
The adrenalin rush buying online is because we all get a thrill buying cheaper items (incl shipping) online.
Why don’t you get into the online trade and try and sell your items online then.
If you are not selling then you are not good at marketing.
Pontius, I am not a retailer. In fact I have a congenital disability in anything involving business or making money. But I am a consumer.
Even if an item is cheaper at a particular shop in Malta, I would first have to find the shop. On your side, it means you have to advertise the product, with the price, with the address of the shop. With Amazon, you get everything.
I would also need to know exactly which product I want. Amazon allows you to compare among a vast range of products within the same category.
Then there’s the physical strain of getting to your shop. And here my interests and those of yours, the retailers, converge. And it is you who must make your voice heard. Because the government listens to you.
I’m talking about transport networks and urban planning.
If it takes me an hour and a half to cover, say, ten kilometres from my home to your shop, in scorching heat, consuming petrol on the way, and leaking spinal fluid with the strain of finding a parking spot, then the few extra Euros that I spend for the same product on Amazon are worth it. It’s as simple and as physical as that.
There is no pleasure in shopping in Malta. I think I can safely say that, because I’m old enough to have done some of my shopping in the pre-internet years.
I’m sorry I am unable to offer any suggestions on competitiveness. But my suggestion would be to pull strings and twist knobs and set up a retailers’ lobby for proper transport and urban planning. That is the key to negating Amazon’s advantage.
Maltese retailers can never compete with Amazon, but at least they can try to offer a decent service and be honest with the customer.
I can mention some memorable experiences like buying a new coffee machine and going home only to realise it is has been used.
A furniture shop which never came back to replace a scratched dining-table even though I never paid them. You wonder why so many people are getting IKEA.
The list is endless.
Pontius,
Amazon can never provide the direct tactile experience.
Now if Republic Street has to have a jeweller’s every other shop, you tell me what I’m supposed to do.
Why should I find the same shops in Plaza and The Point? And if it’s different shops, why do they have to sell the same identical stuff?
Call me biased, but our propensity to adopt everything done the protestant way, thinking Regent Street, only with approximate tendencies, reduces everything to permanent mid-west convenience malls.
Call it il-ftit minn kollox. One of the main reasons being the vitiated idea of shopping as stocking up, ergo parking an essential part of the experience. Qadja, xirja, girja, tibdila, ir-rigali.
What about the rest, indeed, is there anything else?
And this follows from the same attitude, can’t have vans trying to replenish blocking traffic, so just load the place.
Even toy shops have become a drab affair, piled to the ceiling with boxes displaying the toys inside. And that’s your shopping ‘malls’.
All I know is that we’ve been blabbing away at catchment, mix and urban regeneration, when all we do is bicker on parking.
Take the worst habits and turn them into needs, then grumble Malta can’t have any better. On with the one size fits all then.
I’m not interested in driving to Mosta because parking is better, albeit the same identical mix. What I want is to mix my browsing with the Saturday afternoon passeggiata, maybe take it to the Saturday night out.
Ever seen dog friendly, locker providing music clubs? Or the aperitivo phenomenon? It’s about knowing which market.
And no, Malta’s isn’t too small, not when visitors are over the one and a half million, it’s just the market that’s restricted.
And yes, get the tour guide racket out of the way.
The direct tactile experience satisfies a need on Maslow’s hierarchy only when there is craftsmanship. The beauty of the act.
Malta, for all its bullshit talk on hub of this and that, and Baroque, and value added, and bladibla, has killed craftsmanship.
You think a “modern” economy is about e-hubs and e-commerce? Rubbish. Savile Row is buzzing with young apprentices. Right in the heart of the most ultra-globalised financial centre of Europe. Copenhagen turns out more bespoke, one-of-a-kind objects than anywhere else. Would anyone think of Denmark as a presepju economy?
Craftsmanship requires aesthetic values. This isn’t about “dynamic” Vision 2015 presentations by fawning MZPN lawyers, under the uninterested gaze of Lawrence Gonzi, or “Singapore in the Med” presentations by some young, impressionable “gradwat” under the enthusiastic gaze of Joseph Muscat.
It’s about the national narrative. You kill beauty, you kill craftsmanship, you make Xarabank the gold standard, and you forfeit forever the ability to compete with Amazon.
I cannot order a bespoke suit on Amazon. How many new Maltese tailors are there to fill that gaping niche? A grand total of zero.
I feel like Louis Nolan trying to make myself heard over the din, pointing and shouting “There, there are your business opportunities, Prime Minister.”
A MAJOR reason why retailers are suffering is the incredibly foul ECO TAX – sorry contribution. A damper for retail sales if ever there was one.
Let me give a very simple example which will serve to highlight why clients opt to buy from abroad – and who can blame them?
A tablet should sell at around €70. However because of ECO you have to add a minimum of €38.48 bumping up the price to nearly €110.
The unfairness of this is that if you buy a server costing €5000 you still pay €38.48.
To make matters even worse if the client gets the tablet personally direct to his residence from say ebay, he ‘avoids’ paying this ECO Tax.
This is across the board for most hi tech equipment and very many other white goods.
This ‘tax’ was introduced by the previous administration and retained by the present one.
The GRTU has been struggling to get Government to repeal this hugely unfair law which simply unbalances the playing field and puts it lopsided against Malta’s retailers.
This is just one aspect mind you.
H P. Baxxter . Please keep to what you know best. Clearly economics is not your forte. Your chronological run down of the Maltese economy from 1987 to date is not only simplistic but downright silly.
Then correct me. I’m keen to learn.
Freedom5 thinks the economy is strictly homo economicus.
The fact s/he can’t even engage the argument, too outlandish for his/her orthodox tastes one of the basic axioms to turn on their heads in this place.
Self-proclaimed experts who’ll stick to ‘common’ knowledge. Experts who, it has to be said, will always have a conflict of interest in a place as intimate as this one.
Virtual space, different perspective, no way. Denigrate and patronise the person to stifle the concept.
Because Baxxter’s isn’t an opinion, it’s an idea.
Tell me, Freedom5, do you have data revealing a consistent decrease in the turnover of commercial enterprises, shops changing hands every other month to us unversed, per location?
And do you have comparative data with managed malls in their never ending quest for catchment?
Does the data fit other criteria, dunno, value introduction, core experience, location qualities, etc.?
Of course not. Stuck in the 90’s High Street paradigm.
Kos! Ghal xi raguni TVM nesa jinkludiha fil-bulettin tal-ahbarijiet.
Not surprising at all, if the government keeps allowing Sicilian traders to sell in Malta without being registered for VAT. Sales still happen but they are being stolen away from Maltese traders.
I provide internet marketing and search-engine services to businesses, and most of my clients are Maltese – mostly service providers rather than retailers, but I have had lots of conversations that are relevant to what is being discussed here.
It seems to me that a lot of Maltese businesses want to actively ignore the internet. I could cite many examples of conversations with business owners that say something like, “We don’t need the internet here”.
On one level, it is fine to take that approach, but your clients, they do want the internet. They want it on their smartphones, tablets, laptops and work stations.
If you decide to not go where your clients are so that you can communicate, market and sell to them, what is the likely outcome going to be? Sooner or later you will be left behind and it is just a matter of time until your doors close.
When they do want to do something, they mostly demand the absolute cheapest (as business owners everywhere do). The days when you could get a website that was passable in your marketplace for 100 euros are long gone.
However, if I were to make suggestions to business owners, I would say that they need to spend more time, effort and resources on marketing. Most (certainly not all though) of the companies I have met here are not great at marketing and many firms do none at all.
They have been in business so long that they don’t feel they need to do anything. Simply existing is not enough to compete these days, no matter what your pricing may be.
There are probably 1000 things that a company could be doing, but if all they do is open their doors and hope, what can they really expect?
Nuxellina, the Labour mayor of Qormi, opened a shop in Valletta about two months ago. Great sense of timing.