Just the tonic

So the $900 dished out to every Australian resident earning under $100,000 will shortly be making its way into our bank accounts.

But as something of an unexpected bonus just how should one go about spending it?

A quick poll of assorted randoms lolling around Yaffa Publishing suggests most intend using the bonus for the very thing K Rudd asked us not to - retire debt. Be it overdraft, credit card, mortgage or gifts for our better halves for alleged misdemeanours.

Of course the overall results were skewed slightly when it came to the Ragtrader corner with those of us who had not already spent the dosh ahead of time earmarking it, of course, for fashion.

And with so many great promotions going on among the apparel retail sector, we are quite literally spoilt for choice.

This very fact was pressed upon by Worth Global Style Network (WGSN) editorial content director Juliette Warkentin during her recent visit to Australia for the GPI inaugural Retail Seminar.

During the course of a fantastic 40-minute spiel on retail excellence, Warkentin noted that one of the biggest challenges facing retailers in the current economic climate was the sheer scale of "aggressive promotional trading".

In addressing an audience which included representatives from high profile companies such as Diva, Noni B, Giordano and Apparel Group, Warkentin said many rag traders in Australia had bemoaned the competitive nature of the industry with the cut throat discounting only making things worse.

With retail sales in the UK in their 11th consecutive month of decline, sales in Japan down to the lowest point since records began 40 years ago and China's annual growth rate expected to halve during 2009, Aussie retailers can hardly been blamed for viewing excessive discounting as their best chance of survival.

But the scale here appears to pale in significance to that of global competitors.

Describing the run up to the Christmas holiday season as "bloody",

Warkentin claimed things had gotten so bad in the UK and US retail prices had routinely been sliced by as much as 70 per cent. In Asia, Chinese retailers had effectively gone on sale for the whole quarter prior to the launch of the Chinese New Year.

Whether it be geographical or biological - Warkentin claimed apparel retailers in Australia were also among those best placed to weather the dreaded "R" word in the months ahead.

The very fact so many different apparel companies attended the seminar suggests your degree of optimism - even when facing the biggest hurdles.

That you are so keen to embrace new and different methods of communicating with your customers and that tours such as Westfield's annual World Retail Study tours of retailing best practice are so well attended has already stood you ahead of the pack.

And that you have so readily - and so early on in the piece - embraced innovative changes such as the pressing need for corporate social responsibility, to help differentiate you from your peers are all evidence of this.

Now if we could just get the rest of the world to stand up and take notice.