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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (20942)	1/10/2005 7:45:24 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

UK retailers experience worst Christmas in last decade - BRC/KPMG survey Tuesday, January 11, 2005 12:16:08 AM afxpress.com LONDON (AFX) - Retailers experienced the worst Christmas of the last decade, with a last-minute boost to sales in the final few days failing to make up the shortfall caused by caution among consumers, according to a key survey of the sector In its monthly retail sales monitor, the British Retail Consortium said like-for-like sales in December were down 0.4 pct on a year earlier Total sales, which includes expansion in floor space, rose 2.5 pct in December compared with a year ago In November, sales fell 0.2 pct like-on-like while total sales rose 2.4 pct "These figures represent the worst Christmas for retailers in the last decade," said Kevin Hawkins, BRC director general. December started slowly and got progressively worse until the Christmas week, when a marked upturn and some stronger clearance sales from Boxing Day onwards failed to compensate, the survey said Consumers remain cautious, especially about larger purchases, it found. Furniture and homewares suffered, clothing and footwear struggled and only food and drink showed some growth, helped by the longer pre-Christmas week, it said "Even the materialisation of the expected last minute rush and strong trading for many retailers in the post-Christmas sales could not turn December into a positive month," Hawkins said Uncertainty over the economy and the housing market dented consumer confidence during December, and this trend shows no sign of abating in the immediate future, he said Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG noted that the level of promotional activity that was needed to drive sales over the Christmas period is bad news for retailers' margins "We see some challenging times ahead," she said The three-month trend rate of growth fell to -0.1 pct in December from 0.8 pct in November for like-for-like sales, and to 2.6 pct from 3.4 pct for total sales, the survey found forexstreet.com