Retailers and their suppliers are in for a poor week this week. On Thursday, many retailers will be receiving their quarterly rent bills, and some will undoubtedly find it difficult to cough up the money. 3 months ago, many outlets were forced into administration when the last quarterly rental bill hit the doormat. A big worry this time around is that consumer belt tightening because of fears over jobs/recession etc coupled with some rather unpleasant snowy conditions in February will have led to a further drop in retail sales in February. The figures are due out Thursday. Experts are predicting that sales will be down 0.2 % on the month, and year on year growth will decline from 3.6% to 2.7%.
I was down in Hastings town centre last weekend, and It looked a whole lot like many other towns across the UK- plenty of activity in the charity shops, but lots of vacant sites scattered around , even in the pedestrianised centre. It will be interesting to see whether more household names bite the dust once the brown envelopes are opened!