Charity Shops – an established and valuable part of our retail landscape.
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
There are an estimated 11,000 -12,000 Charity shops located across the UK according to the Charity Retail Association. They play a hugely important part in many of our High Streets but for several years have received widespread criticism as somehow ‘taking over’ our local High Streets and as a result damaging the shopping appeal and vibrancy of these shopping areas. The reality is quite different. Charity shops account for only around 5% of all retail outlets in the UK – and according to the latest data from LDC over 350 closed for good in 2020. So, the impression that charity shops are expand ..read more
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UK Retail Post-COVID
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
There are still three hugely important ‘unknowns’ which I believe hold the key to the future health and recovery of the UK retail sector ‘post-COVID’ The first should become clearer from mid-April, when ‘non-essential ‘stores can reopen (in England) and shoppers are then able to freely return to their local High Streets, town and city centres. But although the COVID rules say these stores can start to trade again, will they all choose to do so? And just because all these ‘non-essential’ retailers can open, will shoppers choose to return to physical stores? According to data from LDC, an intere ..read more
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Don’t Cry When I’m Gone-Nostalgia and UK Retail
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
Much of the media coverage over the past ten days or so, following the inevitable but slow demise of both Debenhams and Topshop stores, is the most recent reminder of an unusual social phenomenon (but which has surfaced on regular occasions over the past couple of decades) It has reignited what I can only describe as the UK national ‘collective nostalgia’ for retail brands that are either long gone or rapidly disappearing from the UK’s town and city centres – or as many inaccurately, describe it as ‘the High Street’. This first outpouring of this ‘national retail grief’ happened back in 2009 w ..read more
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What does the Boohoo/Debenhams deal mean for UK retail and what will happen to their stores?
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
Apart from the huge job losses and store closures involved, the Boohoo/Debenhams deal announced yesterday, along with what seems likely to be a similar arrangement to follow between Arcadia Group and ASOS (although yet unconfirmed) marks a real ‘watershed moment’ for UK retail. It finally confirms that the established multiple retail business growth model of hundreds of identical physical stores across the country, involving huge ‘occupancy costs’ such as rent, business rates and service charges, is just no longer viable in an environment where consumers can now choose how, where and when to s ..read more
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‘Infection protection’ – a new, but important shopper loyalty factor in 2021
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
It’s been clear for some time that, because of fast changing customer behaviours, retailers can no longer rely on conventional customer loyalty or traditional shopping habits to have shoppers either choose to visit or return to their stores. Increased competition in most retail sectors in the UK, combined with an almost exponential growth in customer choice not only from where, but how and when, product can be purchased, means customer loyalty is much less tangible than twenty or thirty years ago. Back in the 1990’s, and so before online shopping existed (although catalogue shopping was import ..read more
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Are turnover-based rents the future in UK retail?
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
My final post of 2020 avoids the predictable review of the retail sector over the past year or the trap of forecasting what might happen in retail during 2021. Instead, I am returning to a subject increasingly mentioned in debates and discussions about the future commercial relationship between retail landlords and their tenants, which is turnover-based rents. Landlords typically can forfeit the lease by peaceable re-entry if the rent is not paid within 14 or 21 days. However, the Government’s support for business during this COVID-19 crisis included a moratorium on the ability of retail landl ..read more
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The fall of Debenhams and Arcadia was inevitable: both shackled by earlier financial engineering.
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
It’s hard to remember when so much happened in UK retail in just a single week. Over the past seven days there have been several significant announcements, including the 12,000 jobs at risk as JD Sports pulled out of possible Debenhams takeover talks and the administrators then announcing last Monday evening that stores would close once stock had been sold through. This was followed less than 12 hour later by the news that there were another 13,000 jobs at risk as Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group (including such well-known retail brands as Topshop, Topman, Burtons, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Dorot ..read more
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Walmart depart Japan – What Went Wrong?
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
With a population of 127 million, an extremely high per capita income and still one of the world’s largest economies, Japan has been an attractive overseas market for retailers since the 1990’s. However, Walmart has now become the latest foreign retailer to retreat from Japan. Walmart Inc. is selling most of Japanese retailer Seiyu to KKR & Co. and Rakuten Inc. in a deal that values the supermarket chain at 172.5 billion yen ($1.6 billion), as the U.S. giant retreats from its two-decade attempt to crack Japan’s retail market. Under the agreement, private equity fund KKR will become the maj ..read more
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Does the UK Government really understand the retail sector?
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
These are unprecedented times for UK retail. As we approach the last seven weeks of the key Christmas trading quarter, the Government’s latest COVID-19 directive last week means that all ‘non-essential’ retailers across England are now closed and can’t re-open until at least early December. In Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland a raft of different restrictions is impacting retailers, whether they are classified as ‘essential’ or not. This comes on top of the hugely turbulent few months earlier in 2020 for the retail sector, when all ‘non-essential’ retailers across the UK were forced to clo ..read more
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A very uncertain few weeks for UK Retail
RETAIL VIEWS AND NEWS
by Nelson Blackley
3y ago
Every year at the start of the ‘Golden Quarter’ in October, all retailers face uncertainties about their critical sales performance leading up to Christmas. Have they committed to enough stock (but not too much) of the key selling products? Will they lose sales or profit because of competitors price reductions? Have they enough sales staff in their stores at the busiest times to meet demand? Is their online business operation sufficiently robust to respond to the growing level of ‘armchair shoppers’ and the last-minute annual surge in online orders? How might the unpredictable winter weather o ..read more
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