Mary Portas has launched The Society of Shopkeepers, a membership community on Substack for people working in retail, only a few weeks after previewing it in her closing keynote at TheIndustry.fashion Summit.
The retail expert, author, activist and founder of Portas Consultancy opened the Society today, 5 November, as a community for everyone who believes great shops are worth fighting for.”
Drawing on Portas’ 30 years of experience working with retailers and brands, the Society said it is built for independent shop owners, growing brands, retail leaders, shop-floor teams, marketers and those campaigning for high streets.
Speaking to TheIndustry.fashion co-founder Lauretta Roberts at the Fashion [Un]Bound summit at The Forum in Leadenhall last month, Portas set the project against the way the sector usually organises itself. “Normally in retail it’s all about industry bodies,” she said.
“I’m launching this Society of Shopkeepers for anyone who’s in the business, to be surprising, innovative, discuss things, challenge them.”
The name reflects how Portas describes instinctive retailers. “I call them shopkeepers. I love that. It’s just so much more kind of pride in that,” she said.
“We’re launching this on Substack, and then it’s going into a full-blown platform,” Portas told the audience. “There’ll be workshops and tutorials and insights and cultural insights, very opinionated. I know you wouldn’t expect that from me, but we are going to be opinionated where we think, and pulling out and calling out.”
In the keynote, Portas argued that retail has been run on data, speed and price for too long. She also traced her own career, starting as a Display Manager at Topshop’s Oxford Circus store at 25 and later running creative at Harvey Nichols.
“I never saw myself as in the retail business. I saw myself as in creating magic, and then the byproduct was you sold,” she said. “I think we believed that we had to talk the language of data and analysis… we actually forgot about people and how they were feeling.”
On AI, she said operations would benefit, but warned brands against repeating past dependence on supermarkets, malls and search platforms. “What really brands have to hold on to is distinctiveness,” she said. “AI can do everything and it can assess and give you every answer, but it cannot tell you how people are feeling.”
She also predicted: “I will bet you we will see more physical supporting digital instead of the other way around.”
The newly launched Substack community offers both a free tier and paid membership at £10 a month or £100 a year, and its page already shows more than 11,000 subscribers. All existing Portas newsletters will also move into the Society from launch.
Free members receive The Portas View, a weekly take on retail and culture published on Tuesdays, and Ask Portas, where Portas responds to questions from readers. They also receive clips from within shops each month and three reports a year on the state of retail.
Paid members also get:
- Try This, practical guides on windows, pricing and the shop floor, every Thursday.
- Talking Shop, monthly shop-floor interviews with leading retailers hosted by Portas.
- Sh*t Hot Shops, examples of stores getting it right and why.
- Vision to Action, longer pieces turning retail ideas into practical next steps.
- Ask Me Anything, monthly live briefings with Portas.
- quarterly community events.
As part of the launch, the Society has also released ‘The Magic of Retail’, a free Portas Paper exploring retail’s history and future, which argues that retailers have spent a century trading distinctiveness for greater reach, and calls for creativity to be put back at the heart of retail.
Portas will continue offering bespoke consultancy services and Accelerator Programmes alongside the Society.