Shoppers desert UK high streets January 20, 2013 BRITISH shops were abandoned in the run up to Christmas, new figures showed today, with hard-pressed consumers increasingly staying away from the high street, out of town retailers and shopping centres. Online sales soared upwards to account for over 10 per cent of total sales, leaving traditional shops to bear the brunt of the country’s [...]
Retail sales slip in December January 18, 2013 British retail sales posted a surprise fall in December, crushing hopes that buoyant Christmas trading would provide a boost to the economy. The Office for National Statistics said this morning that sales including fuel fell 0.1 per cent month on month in December. On an annual basis, retail sales posted a jump of 0.3 per [...]
Tesco and Sainsbury’s maintain share after a festive dead-heat January 15, 2013 BRITAIN’S biggest retailer Tesco and third-place grocer Sainsbury’s tied in the battle for sales growth in the key Christmas period, according to data published yesterday. Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel said Tesco and Sainsbury’s both posted identical gross sales growth rates of 3.9 per cent in the six weeks ending 6 January, with market shares unchanged [...]
Little Christmas cheer for retail January 14, 2013 Chief Market Strategist, Cantor Index THE official retail activity figures, which are posted monthly or at specific times like Christmas, are accurate but often indecipherable to the layman. The small print is where the message is. And the most recent figures suggest that Christmas was great for some, but brutal for others. The situation was [...]
UK consumer price index is forecast higher January 13, 2013 UTILITY prices are expected to have lifted the UK’s consumer price index (CPI), the household spending index due out tomorrow along with a swathe of housing and retail data. “We expect CPI inflation to have edged up to 2.8 per cent year on year in December from 2.7 per cent, and retail price index (RPI) [...]
Death of the high street spells doom for retail property January 13, 2013 MORE than one in ten shops in Britain now stand empty. And the situation, the worst it has been in recent years, is unlikely to get better. Gone are the days when consumers spent like lottery winners, and investors could see any high street shop with a good covenant (and upwards-only rent reviews) as the [...]
Bank of England holds rates as inflation expected to rise again January 10, 2013 THE BANK of England decided to keep interest rates steady yesterday, and economists predict rising inflation will stop the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) from printing more money any time soon. The economy is believed to be stuck in a “zig zag” of quarters of growth followed by quarters of contraction or stagnation. But high inflation [...]
Drop in energy prices drives dip in inflation for OECD members January 9, 2013 INFLATION in the world’s more economically developed countries slowed down towards the end of 2012, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced yesterday. In November 2012, consumer prices rose by just 1.9 per cent versus the same month a year earlier. This compares to a 2.2 per cent rise in the prior month [...]
UK food prices propping up shopping costs January 8, 2013 FOOD prices remained well above their December 2011 levels last month, despite creeping down marginally compared to November. The annual rate of food price inflation was 4.1 per cent in December, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said this morning, down from 4.6 per cent in the year to November. This fall comes off the back of a [...]
Rapid responses January 8, 2013 Planning inflation [Re: Daft planning rules are pushing up the price of food in shops, yesterday] While it is always good for an article about planning policy to focus on commercial property rather than housing, and while the academics cited may have delivered interesting papers, let’s not use this work to justify more fiddling with [...]