Comments on: Can sales save the retailers?

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:24:09 +0000

In the Fens, there has always been a shift in market places.
King’s Lynn had a mediaeval market based on the old German/Russian trade through the Hanse. Then, when the Bedford Level drained part of the Fens, a brand new Market Place started off with pubs and another Parish Church. In the 1960s, the market area shifted into the new pedestrian precinct round Sainsbury’s and the new Bus Park/Railway project. Now, in the next millenium, it is shifting again to the ring road with hypermarkets of various kinds.
I say this to reassure. The centre of Wisbech is largely charity shops, defunct Woolies, Poundland etc and some tea shops and pubs. Apart from the weekly market, it is a dead zone. The action is moving out to the ring road with the new multiplex.
Plus ca change…..
I am so pleased that you understand the skill and professionalism of traders of all stripes: the BBC seems to see them all as swindlers/rich people/polluters. In fact, they are the cutting edge of this economy.

By: Derek

Derek — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:16:21 +0000

A lot of ‘sale’ stuff is brought in specially, but is not seconds it is just made to a price point. It’s what’s known in the trade as a mug’s eyeful. There are genuine cost or below cost bargains out there if you know where to look, particularly in clothing.

There’s a big media narrative about savvy shoppers leaving it later every year. The recent Woolworths sale undermines this a bit with their initial ‘up to 50% sale’ that duped many into buying when the discount was only 10% (7.9% really when you bear in mind the VAT cut wasn’t passed on).

Unfortunately, survival will be less down to gifted retailing and more down to how much of the estate is freehold and whether the debt can be refinanced or not. The current environment is so harsh that you can have a large market share, mopping up most of the available spend, but still be struggling to make ends meet.

Outmoded business models are a favourite analysis for failing businesses. Take the car industry, for example, the standard line is they didn’t adapt their products to environmentally friendly models people want to buy. It’s nonsense though, if cheap car loans were still available people would still be merrily buying 4x4s. Any car manufacturer who’d decided to go over to an entirely green product range would be calling the administrators. The car industry churned out SUVs because that was what people wanted to buy. The slowdown was too fierce and the timeframe too small for them to be fairly expected to have re-invented themselves.

By: Michael, Islington

Michael, Islington — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:41:57 +0000

I can see you don’t go shopping much.

Just about all the high street retailers are stuffing their “sales” with specially bought-in seconds.

They don’t think as much about right product, right price and right place as about there’s a lot of right mugs.

Reply: Yes, there is always a lot of special sale merchandise, which some like. There are also genuine bargains from heavily discounted regular stock, as I have seen for my self again this year.

By: Mike Gill

Mike Gill — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:39:03 +0000

Surely there has to be a substantial reduction in total retail capacity. The current discount frenzy is the retail version of last man standing. Spending power is reduced not only by reduction of borrowing but also by the need to pay down existing debt, and recovery in spending power will be damped by future tax rises

When the surviving shops re-stock after their current currency hedges and supply contracts expire, we will presumably see inflation for imported items. Buy what you need now if you can!