The most attentive observers, or simply shopping lovers will have noticed: these days a lingerie store in the city of a well-known chain is moving to a location, very close, but much larger. And will someone move into the other store or will it be a new empty window in the center of Novara? And what’s more, a store near the gallery that has plenty of empty windows.
“Unfortunately, the concept of the modern gallery is not very functional. In Novara, location is very important. Everyone wants the main streets, think of Via Rosselli, Corso Italia, Corso Cavour. If your shop is even just five meters away on a side street, people won’t come in. Unfortunately, the gallery didn’t make it, or rather, it didn’t register any attractive openings. Just think of a big brand that then opened elsewhere,” explains Gigi Ricci, president of Ascom Novara Centro. The Novara shopkeeper makes a general assessment of local retail trade: “Now there are large chains or disorganized traders,” he says, “some people move to larger premises and then it’s difficult to find someone who will come into a small shop. In the center, there are 50/60 square meter shops and the big chains don’t want them. The lingerie shop that moves has stayed where it was until it found something better.” In the city centre there are around 300 shop windows, “at least ten are closed in the main streets,” Ricci continues, “economically it is not a good time and the season that is expected is not the best.”
The president of Ascom Centro reflects on this situation: “In Novara there is a huge lack of tourism, or rather we do little to attract tourism, even foreign tourism, they all go to the lake. There is little advertising for the city of Novara, those who are in the area go to Milan. We have shuttles that go to the outlet for free, why not think that tourists can also dedicate a day to our city? We have monuments and beauties. There is a lack of coordination at a national level which then has an impact on the local level”.
The initiatives to promote trade and that bear the Ascom Confcommercio signature are popular with the people of Novara, perhaps not all the traders agree, but those who join are satisfied, among these is “Fuori i negozi”: “We are not many but those who do it are happy and the turnover has increased, because perhaps without displaying the goods outside a person would not have entered, on the contrary this situation encourages you to look inside too. On the other hand, there are those who say that the stalls devalue the city, it is difficult to get everyone to agree”.
Now we await the sales, scheduled for July.
