On this week’s episode of Inside Business, host Cliff Taylor is joined in studio by Louisa Earls, manager of Books Upstairs, along with Laura Caffrey, & Clare Grennan, Co-Owners of Irish Design Shop, to get an insight into their experience as independent retailers in Dublin city during a period of the year that accounts for up to a third of their annual sales.

Louisa discusses the pivot Books Upstairs made towards online sales during the early days of Covid, the titles that have flown off the shelves this year, competing with Amazon and what the government could do better to protect small independent businesses operating in the city.

Laura and Clare from Irish Design Shop explain the challenges of starting a business in the teeth of the financial crash in late 2008, stocking products from over 60 Irish designers in its Drury Street shop, soaring tourist trade and why so many online orders are now coming from suburban Dublin.

All three guests highlight the surge in shoplifting and why it is so difficult to combat.

Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

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