The workshop series – aimed at supporting the growth of small retail businesses in suburban and regional shopping precincts – has so far covered South Morang, Melbourne, Melton, Cranbourne, Box Hill, Traralgon, Ocean Grove, Bendigo, and Ballarat. A series of workshops is also about to start in Wangaratta and the entire workshop series winds up in mid August.
Participants have come from a wide range of retail backgrounds including footwear, apparel, floristry, bakeries, hair and beauty, photography, telecommunications, pharmacies and jewellery. The retail outlets were of varying sizes and workshop attendees consisted of business owners, key store personnel and in some cases, entire store teams.
According to Senior Retail Consultant from the ARA’s Business Development and Training division, Garry Terrill, participation has exceeded his expectations.
“We anticipated between 15 and 20 participants for each series. These targets were mostly met and in some regions, such as Box Hill and Melbourne’s CBD, we had over 40 people take part.”
Mr Terrill says that strong numbers reinforce the fact that there is a strong demand for retailer skills training and business improvement strategies.
“Retailers, particularly from SMEs, realise that it’s tough to compete with the big players and are looking for opportunities to improve their knowledge and skills to give them an edge in the marketplace.”
A number of participants also used the workshops to network with other businesses in their shopping precinct with the intention of collaboratively developing strategies to market their trade centres.
“The opportunity to reinvigorate commercial trade areas as a result of networking is very much in line with the objectives of the government’s Streetlife initiative” says Terrill.
The Victorian Government’s Streetlife initiative has been running since 1997. The program aims to bolster commercial areas, boost the state’s economy, and create employment and new job opportunities.
