Figures to shed light on outlook for UK’s stores
RETAILERS will be looking for signs of green shoots this week, with the release of two important gauges for the UK high street.
The CBI’s distributive trades survey will shed light tomorrow on the current fortunes for British shops.
And a separate survey on Wednesday, from GfK NOP, will reveal if consumer confidence is continuing its recovery in 2012.
The widely-regarded index surprised to the upside in January, rising by four points, with increases in all five categories of the study.
And the news was bolstered by official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which showed a 0.9 per cent lift in sales (in both volume and value) in January compared to December – following a 0.6 per cent jump (by volume) in December, compared to November.
Yet independent surveys from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and CBI were considerably less positive, raising questions as to the true picture on the UK high street.