Retail sales continue to decline

Sales figures from BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker for the week ending 24 May 2009 were as follows:

  • Total Sales: -3.0%

Total sales fell by 3.0 per cent on a like-for-like basis - the worst week since the beginning of March.

  • Non-fashion: +5.1%

Non-fashion results remained positive with speciality and luxury retailers doing well.  The luxury market remains solid, helped by ongoing reports of higher tourist related spending, while outdoor specialists also had a good week.

  • Fashion: -5.1%

Fashion retailers had a disappointing week with takings down 5.1 per cent. Only a handful of stores bucked the general negative picture, with specialists and youth ranges fairing best.  Big ticket impulse spending appeared to suffer the most, with consumers appearing to be unwilling to purchase items at full price.

  • Homewares: -13.3%

Homeware stores saw takings decrease by double-digit levels for the second consecutive week.  Although promotions did give a short term boost to some stores, this was offset by lower core demand across most product categories.

  • Non-Store: +46.1%

Non-store sales remained strong, but were down on last week, with homeware stores reporting soft demand. In contrast, fashion retailers continued to report buoyant demand.

Rupert Eastell, Head of Retail at BDO, says: ”The recent trend of mixed results continued this week with positive non-fashion figures cancelled out by negative figures from fashion and homeware retailers. As a result, overall like-for-like sales decreased for a third week in a row, falling by 3 per cent. This suggests although underlying demand is still higher than the depressed levels witnessed during Autumn last year, conditions are becoming progressively more difficult.”

“However, retail sales are still not as bad as many had been anticipating, so there are still pockets of optimism on the UK’s high streets,” he concludes.

Sales this week last year

Demand held-up reasonably well this week last year, with fashion (-0.5 per cent) and homeware (-1.2 per cent) stores reporting flat demand, while non-fashion retailers saw sales increase strongly (+7.8 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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