Consumer Spending

43,000 retailers in ‘financial distress’

Nearly 43,000 retailers ended the first quarter of the year in a state of ‘significant’ financial distress, according to research from insolvency firm Begbies Traynor. Its ‘Red Flag Alert’ research for Q1 2018, which monitors the financial health of UK companies, found the number of firms in the category was…

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Retail footfall drops in February

Retail footfall decreased by 0.5 percent in February 2018, and is a major decline compared with the rate of 1.0 percent seen the previous year. According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) this figure is better than the three-month average of -2.0 percent and the twelve-month average of -0.7 percent.…

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Consumer spending grows 3.8 percent, outstripping inflation

Consumer spending growth held steady in February – up 3.8 percent year-on-year and in line with the three-month rolling average (3.9 percent) – as consumers made small adjustments to their budgets to make room for the ‘nice-to-haves’. Data from Barclaycard shows that supermarket spending (3.2 percent) returned to levels seen…

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Planning applications for retail stores falls for ninth consecutive year

Planning applications for new shops have fallen for the ninth year in a row, says platform for peer-to-peer property lending, Lendy. New research by Lendy shows that the number of planning applications for new shops and shopping centres in England are down 55 percent since the credit crunch to just…

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Inflation drops for the first time in 6 months

The inflation rate saw a slight dip in December, falling to 3%, according to figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The level of inflation, according to Consumer Price Index (CPI), was less than November’s rate of 3.1%, which was at its highest for six years. The high…

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Retail administrations increase in five-year-first

  The number of retailers entering administration increased from 92 in 2016 to 118 in 2017, an increase of 28 percent, according to new analysis from Deloitte. This is the first increase in the last five years, as those administrations with more than ten stores rose from 11 in 2016…

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Household finances slow UK spending growth

Consumer spending growth slowed to 2.4 percent in October as Brits cut back across the board to cope with household finances. Data from Barclaycard reveals that spending on essentials (2.9 percent) outstripped discretionary spend growth (2.2 percent) for the second month running. This slowdown in expenditure on ‘nice-to-haves’ was driven…

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Shop price deflation stays at four year low

For the second consecutive month, shop price deflation has remained 0.1 percent. According to figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Nielsen, September and October saw the shallowest rate in the last four years. Non-food products saw deflation of 1.5 percent. October’s food prices recorded the same increase as…

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August sees retail sales increase

In August, UK retail sales increased by 1.3 percent on a like-for-like basis from August 2016, according to the BRC. On a total basis, sales rose 2.4 percent in August, against a decline of 0.3 percent in August 2016, which had been the poorest performance of the year. This is…

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Retail sales increase by 0.3%

Retail sales increased by 0.3 percent in July 2017, compared with the previous month, according to the Office of National Statistics. This was due to strong sales in food stores at 1.5 percent; recovering from a fall of 1.1 percent in June 2017. The underlying pattern in the quantity bought, measured…

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