Non-fashion and homeware retailers have excellent week

Consumer confidence slowly improving, says BDO

Sales figures from BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker for the week ending 10 May 2009 were as follows:

  • Total Sales: -1.7%

Total sales fell by 1.7 per cent on a like-for-like basis; however the underlying trends are still better than expected.

  • Non-fashion: +12%

Non-fashion retailers enjoyed their best week since the turn of the year with the vast majority of stores witnessing positive sales.  Retailers with a focus on luxury, outdoor goods and leisure related items posted the strongest results, with demand for small ticket gifts especially good.

  • Fashion: -8.8%

Against very strong results this week last year, when a sudden warm period of weather helped drive demand, most fashion retailers posted negative results this week.  A general reduction in the level of promotional activity compared to last year also did not help, with footwear and womenswear suffering the most.

  • Homewares: +9.1%

Homeware stores had an excellent week, admittedly helped by weak comparatives, with demand up in most areas.  Furniture sales improved significantly, while sales of general household items, such as linen, glass and cookware were also higher.

  • Non-Store: +53.1%

Non-store takings were once again significantly stronger than physical retail sales with the vast majority of businesses recording double-digit growth.

Rupert Eastell, Head of Retail at BDO, says: “Results were extremely mixed this week - non-fashion retailers experienced the best results since the start of the year, with homeware stores not far behind, whereas fashion stores witnessed a sharp drop.”

“Although this was the weakest outturn for three weeks, it is still nevertheless a reasonable performance given the difficult underlying conditions.  Even though demand seems to have slowed a little in recent weeks, generally sales have held-up much better than expected, with consumer confidence slowly improving,” he concludes.

Sales this week last year

The arrival of warm sunny weather helped drive footfall onto the high street this week last year with fashion stores witnessing double digit growth (+11.2 per cent). In contrast, homeware retailers had a very bad week, (-17.4 per cent) while non-fashion was also negative (-2.6 per cent).

Source: BDO High Street Sales Tracker

ENDS

For more information, please contact Dee Crooks at BDO on 020 7893 2761 / 07815 172 051 or email: dee.crooks@bdo.co.uk

Notes to editors:

BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker outlines weekly sales changes of more than 60 mid market retailers with some 10,000 individual stores. These are mainly located on high streets through the UK, however, they exclude grocers. The results are published every Friday.

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