Carry on Shopping

Other retailers were not pleased with the competition

Ibiza's shoppers were given some good news this week by no less a body than the Balearic Superior Tribunal of Justice - which you don't normally think of when you fancy a new pair of jeans – when it ruled that a shop called Pull and Bear should be given a license to trade in Ibiza. Hopefully this will be the end of a long running and outrageous saga of blatant favouritism and over protection in the retail sector of the economy.
Pull and Bear's shop arrived like a breath of fresh air on the Ibiza scene. It was open when people weren't at work, its clothes were well made, economically priced and neatly presented for shoppers. Its assistants could usually be found busying round the shop and appeared to have had some training in customer service.
Quite naturally the shop went down a bomb with the public. Other retailers were not pleased with the competition and immediately enlisted the aid of local politicians. What happened next was a complete farce – because Pull and Bear belonged to a larger company – it was deemed that it needed a special license to open a shop the same size as all the others in the street and was fined €300,000 for not having one.
Despite the fact that in a public survey conducted by the Diario de Ibiza newspaper showing that around 80% of the public were all for better retail opportunities (four other shops like Pull and Bear were in exactly the same situation) the politicians still insisted on looking after the interests of a few Ibicenco shop owners.
The members of the Tribunal however saw the benefit to the consumers through an increase in competition, which should lead to improvements in service and quality in other shops. And with a bit of luck will allow the new Zara shop to open in town very shortly!

Published 19 March 2007 Stephen White.

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