 According to BDO, the high street has been a tough environment for some of Britain’s retailers this summer, but despite a raft of bad news, sales have continued to grow for some. After June was dominated by the widely-publicised woes of household
names such as Habitat, TJ Hughes and Jane Norman, the market had feared the worst. However, consumers continued to spend, pushing up sales by 2.6% on a like-for-like basis.
 While some retailers struggled to balance their books, shoppers looked no further than a summer sales season that started earlier and was longer and deeper than last year. Seasonal promotions boosted year-on-year fashion sales by 0.7% in the five weeks to 3 July, but the real gains were homewares. The latter grew by 14.7%, taking retailers by surprise and putting an end to six months of extremely weak sales that included a 7% year-on-year drop last month.
Don Williams, National Head of Retail and Wholesale at BDO LLP, said the surprisingly resilient figures suggested a note of optimism for the rest of the year.
“There have been warnings in the media of a ‘black September’ for the high street, but these figures suggest the market will remain steady, if uninspiring, until the Christmas season,” says
Williams.
“The pressures on consumer spending – inflation, tax, job security – are unlikely to change between now and the end of the year, and there are no more major public holidays like the royal wedding to boost sales. The only other factor that can have a universal effect on the high street is the weather, but even that is unlikely to spark variations of more than 2%.
“Retailers will still have to work hard to encourage cautious consumers to spend. This environment will polarise the operators; the strong will benefit, but the weak will fail.”
BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker has accurately forecast shopping trends since 2006 by monitoring weekly sale changes of more than 70 retailers with approximately 10,000 individual stores.
Image: High street sales
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