Sales monitor reinforces tough Christmas

The BSSA sales monitor for the last quarter of 2008 has reinforced the fact independent retailers continued to experience extremely tough trading conditions over the Christmas period.

Sales performance was down by 5.2% overall compared with the same quarter in 2007, the worst quarterly fall since the start of the monitor. 'Perhaps the most alarming statistic was to find that over 70% of respondents experienced an average fall in sales of over 12% during the period compared with the previous year', said Chief Executive John Dean.

Indications are that department stores have been particularly hard hit, although clothing and giftwares have also suffered. Scotland showed a positive performance of 1.8%, whilst all areas of England were in negative territory in terms of performance. 'whilst independent retailers are being very resourceful and managing their businesses with financial rigour, there is a great concern that unless they can rapidly re-establish lines of credit with their banks, some excellent and profitable businesses are likely to fail in the forthcoming months.'