September 9, 2008 | posted by Michael Baxter in High Steet |

Here is some news for you. Ready – well the weather wasn’t very nice in August.

In fact, the British Retail Consortium talked about: “Very wet and dull weather.”

Well, as you know, the High Street has enough problems at the moment – so the last thing it needed was that lousy weather. (Maybe retailers should put sun beds in all their stores – free ultra-violet rays, that’s what we all need – ed.)

All in all, UK retail sales values fell 1.0 per cent on a like-for-like basis from August 2007.

Food and drink was the only sector to show sales significantly up on a year ago. Clothing and footwear remained poor. Furniture and homewares were well down on a year ago, despite continued discounts and promotions. (No mention on sun lamps – ed.)

Stephen Robertson, Director General, British Retail Consortium, said: “Miserable weather washed out hopes of a summer boost for retailers, already suffering the slowdown. Annual like-for-like sales fell in five of the last six months, the first time this has happened since 2005. Even food sales growth slowed as customers focused even more on value. Footwear was the only other sector where sales rose, boosted by children’s shoe sales.

“Prospects for customers and retailers are inextricably linked. Helping retailers keep prices down by cutting regulatory costs is the best way the Government can assist hard-pressed customers. It must think again on business rate supplements and empty property rates relief and consider carefully where the minimum wage goes next.”

Helen Dickinson, Head of Retail, KPMG, said: “The only good news is that the results do not show a significant and further deterioration of the trend over the previous few months but there is no doubt August was another disappointing month for UK retail. We continue to see total UK sales and total food sales growing compared to same period last year but with like-for-like sales falls across almost all the non-food sectors. The exception was footwear where women’s and children’s footwear sales showed marginal like-for-like growth in what is a challenging environment for all. There is also a wide variation in the performance of individual retailers and across the month, as many have used tactical promotional activity to drive sales, particularly around discretionary purchases.”