A selection of stories from the UK’s High Streets, sorry they are not more positive!
- We expect everyone has seen the news about the demise of Toys R Us and Maplin?
- New Look is closing 60 shops (10% of the chain) on the back of 9 month 2018 sales being 11% down on the year
- Interestingly, the Chain is also asking landlords to cut rents and revise leases on nearly 400 of its’ shops
- Sainsbury’s are to increase staff base rate from £8 to £9.20 (new UK National Minimum Wage rises to £7.83 this April for over-25’s)
- The proliferation of restaurants in the UK has resulted in a THIRD being loss-making!
- The Chinese owner of House of Fraser is to sell it off
- Aldi and Lidl continue to grow and threaten “the Big 4” supermarkets (that still, however, take 70% of the total market)
- Aldi and Lidl together now take 12.1% of the food market having each grown by over 13% in the 12 weeks to 25th February
- Business insolvencies in the UK are expected to increase by 8% over the next year, only second to China across the whole world
- The BRC have commented that inflation is still “eating” into shopper’s budgets and restricting discretionary non-food items.
- This is naturally compounded by the weak growth in household earnings
Sorry we do not have more positive news in this latest round-up, please send us some if you have any!!!