Monthly Archives: April 2021

A further 77% said they had believed in a good quality product if it was made in Britain, rising from 60% in 2013.
“There’s a growing desire to buy more British, but a big challenge is where to find products that are made in Britain,” Make it British found Kate Hills said.
When it comes down to building trust in shoppers, knowing that a retailer is selling goods that are made in UK. This could be still one of the main things that can give shoppers confidence in buying them.

Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) there is drop in inflation to 2.5% in March, coming in below both February’s inflation and analysts expectations of 2.7%.
Clothing prices began to slow significantly for the first time this year dropping to just 0.7% in March compared to 2% last year.
The largest upward pressure on inflation has been providing by clothing for most of the year to date, the relief is largely responsible for driving down overall rates.
Food price inflation also slowed seeing a 0.3% rise, dropped from 0.6% rise last year. This was largely driven down by fruit and fish falling 1.4% and 1.3% respectively.
“Inflation fell to its lowest rate in a year, with women’s clothing prices rising slower than usual for the first time this year,” ONS head of inflation Mike Hardie said.
Alcohol and tobacco also helped ease inflation pressures. Tobacco duty rises linked to the Budget not appearing this March thankin

British Retail Consortium (BRC) published in its Springboard Footfall and Vacancies Monitor. This morning found a substantial decline in footfall past five weeks to March 31. It is an average drop of just 1.4% when compared in 2017.
Greater London was hit hardest with footfall down by 7.5%, South East down by 6.5% and the East Midlands dropped by 5.6%.
Overall in any UK region there was no footfall and fell in all destinations. High streets saw a decline of 8.6%, retail parks down by 1.8% and a drop of 4.8% in shopping centres.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson blamed more than just the weather for the results, stating, “whilst the prolonged period of bad weather has had an impact on shoppers visiting the high street, we are seeing a longer term trend of reduced footfall which highlights that shoppers face more choice in terms of how, where and when they shop.”
She added that “the retail environment is changing and retailers are investing in in

After a numerous complaints of a “postcode lottery” there were some additional delivery charges applied to more rural areas, the advertising watchdog has banned any retailers from claiming free delivery if the entire country is not covered.
It said that areas like the Scottish Highlands, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Wight were most commonly slapped with undisclosed surcharges. In addition that any restrictions or exclusions must now clearly made from the outset.
“Companies must honour the delivery claims they’re making or stop making them,” ASA chief executive Guy Parker said.
“It’s simply not fair to mislead people about whether parcels can be delivered to them, or how much it will cost.”
A study by Citizens Advice Scotland, customers in northern parts of Scotland pay 30% more for deliveries than the customers in rest of the UK. The customers those living who are in Scottish islands pay up to 50% more.
Richard Lochhead SNP MSP has bee

According to a research compiled by the Local Data Company (LDC) for PwC, an average of 16 high street stores closed every day last year making a total of 5,885 over the year while an average of 11 opened each day.
The daily openings on an average were down by 12 in 2016 and 15 in 2013.
The number of new high street stores opening in 2017 fell to 4,083 compared to 4,534 in 2016, with the second half of the year seeing substantially more closures and fewer openings than the first six months.
Beauty product stores, coffee shops, cafes and tearooms and ice cream parlours bucked the trend with the highest increase in net store numbers, while physical bookshops and vaping remained popular.
Lisa Hooker, consumer markets leader at PwC, said “2017 was tough for the British retail industry, particularly the second half of the year.”
Seeing volatility month to month and across different sectors as wage growth failed to keep up with inflation. It

Legal firm Linklaters released a new data according to which there has been a 66% rise in short positions against high street retailers and retail manufacturers between the period of beginning of 2015 and the end of 2017.
Short selling is a process where investors bet against the stock they expect to decline in value and make money.
Revealing the growing lack of faith in the UK retail sector can be seen by the sharp rise in short sells, which is currently facing headwinds from multiple directions. It is led to big name retailers like Maplin, Toys R Us, Mothercare, Conviviality and New Look to enter financial straits.
There were 32% of all short positions against consumer companies at the end of 2017.
This has risen to 34% in the first few months of 2018.
“Given the cyclical nature of retail and consumer, it’s no surprise that consumer companies have consistently been most shorted, but the sheer volume of short position reporting gives a c

March saw 10.1% plunge in sales, dropping to the lowest point since 2008 in the height of the financial crisis according to a new data from BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker.
The hardest hit sectors from the drop in footfall were Fashion and homeware seeing a 12.7% and 13.2% dive in sales respectively, marking the worst month on record for fashion.
Mother’s Day provided some respite for the lifestyle sector but ultimately failed to make a dent in the 4.5 per cent drop in sales. This was the second worst month on record.
Online sales suffered showing the slowest level of growth since 2015. Some recovery predicted by BDO in April with flat growth reported in the lead to Easter Sunday.
“However you look at it, March was a brutal month for stores,” BDO’s head of retail and wholesale Sophie Michael said.
The weather was severe and current shoppers’ reaction showed how paper-thin consumer confidence is. People weren’t spending online as they could

There is a drop of 11.5% in the number of people entering non-food outlets last month compared to same period last year and for the 11th consecutive month the overall footfall across UK has now fallen.
During the first week of March blizzards and heavy snow continued to grip the country retailers experienced a massive 28.8% decline in footfall against the same week in 2017.
Ipsos Retail Performance figures shows that despite Easter falling at the end of March, footfall failed to pick up over the bank holiday.
According to the recent data from Springboard the high street footfall dropped over the four day Easter weekend, although there was a footfall boost in shopping centres and retail parks.
South East and London was the biggest casualty, with footfall down by 15.5% according to Ipsos.
This was followed by Scotland and Northern Ireland with a 13.4% drop and The Midlands with a decline of 12.3%.
Retail Traffic Index is derived by the

High street footfall has dropped 9.6% on Good Friday and 6.9% on Saturday according to new data from Springboard.
As there is an improvement in weather on Sunday, shoppers ventured outdoor and pushing up high street footfall levels by 1.9%.
When compared to Friday and Saturday there is a rise of 5% footfall boost in retail parks and shopping centres.
“Despite positive results on Easter Sunday, retail footfall up to 12pm on Easter Monday has taken a tumble,” Springboard insights director Diane Wehrle said.
“This decline was undoubtedly caused by rain that hit much of the UK in the morning and also likely to be due to the fact that shoppers had already made their trips earlier in the weekend.”
Retail parks and shopping centres when compared with greater number of high streets means that the drop in footfall in high streets pulled the overall result for all UK destinations down to -2.4% on Good Friday and -3% on Easter Saturday.
Af

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), revealed that retail sales volumes rose 1.5% during the month to a year earlier, coming in ahead of the predicted 1.3% rise.
There is a rise of 0.8% in sales when compared to January, but a three month basis sales dropped 1.4% due to a dismal December dragging down figures.
Values also jumped from 3.9% compared to last year and 0.8% compared to January, despite inflation slowing.
The largest contributor was once again food stores to growth in amount spent, rising 0.6%, while non-food was the only main sector to see a drop down by 0.3% on January.
“Retail sales did grow in February, with increases seen in food, non-store and fuel, but this followed two months of decline in these sectors”, according to ONS senior statistician Rhian Murphy.
Prices continue to rise across all store types but lower than the previous month due to a slow down in price growth. A stronger price rise con