Retail BID should buy a crystal ball

If Nottingham’s retailers do decide to launch their own Business Improvement District, they'll have a big job on their hands.
For the signs are that the industry has got to find a new way forwards in the wake of this recession.
This isn't an ordinary recession, remember. This was brought on by a financial crisis which has its seeds in our collective decision to borrow more than we could afford to pay back.
It has hobbled the world economy, and will weigh heavily on the UK for years to come because consumers here have been far more reliant on credit to buy things than their counterparts in Germany, for example.
So there are two challenges for the place we call Shoppingham.
One is just keeping the show on the road. We need more events that bring people into the city to spend – more promotions, more themed days, more occasions when shopping joins forces with entertainment and eating out to bring people in from far and wide and keep them here for hours.
There has been surprisingly little of this until very recently, possibly because the old-style market square was harder to stage events in.
So the Retail BID must therefore think beyond retail and involve restaurants, coffee bars, theatres, cinemas, museums, major sporting events and other attractions (like the Castle, an icon which so few people outside the city know anything about).
There should also be a formal acknowledgement of why Shoppingham is what it is. One of the reasons so many fashion brands open up in the city is that there are huge numbers of fashion-conscious students here.
One of the reasons why there are so many fashion-conscious students is that Nottingham Trent University has an international reputation for its fashion and design courses. It's also the home of the one and only Paul Smith
So let's see more of Nottingham's own fashion week. This should be a fashion and design centre, not just Shoppingham
The second challenge is harder to pin down, but it's about the very nature of retailing in the future.
The credit boom is over, probably for years, and the pervasive influence of technology may change how consumers shop and what retailers know about them.
It may be that one of the most valuable exercises that a Retail BID could kick off is some in-depth research into a world in which retail will have to offer consumers so much more than a price in a window.