|
06 April 2010 |
Justin Urquhart Stewart is one of the most recognisable and trusted market commentators in the media. Originally trained as a lawyer, he has observed the retail market industry for 20 years whilst at Barclays Stockbrokers and developed a unique understanding of the market's roles and benefits for the private investor.
Justin Urquhart Stewart is one of the most recognisable and trusted market commentators in the media. Originally trained as a lawyer, he has observed the retail market industry for 20 years whilst at Barclays Stockbrokers and developed a unique understanding of the market's roles and benefits for the private investor. Justin provides financial advice to clients of Kester Cunningham John Financial Planning LLP.
We could call this the 'phoney war'. Although there has already been much anguish and pain from the high streets of Britain, and indeed a significant number of failures have already occurred, it is interesting to note the quite positive figures from some of the leading retailers. Certainly given the prevailing media sentiment, the anecdotal evidence does seem to be really quite contradictory.
In competitive terms, those that are still standing are of course facing less opposition as the weaker retailers have already been whittled away. Those with 'weaker retail propositions' (consultant 'bingo' speak for rubbish businesses), often with highly geared and borrowed balance sheets, have found the pressure just too much and imploded.
It has been interesting to see that there are still the numbers of shoppers out there, and they are seemingly keen to carry on buying. For the start of a decade of austerity it seems to be quite unfashionably perky. The numbers of people do probably hide the actual amount of shopping and certainly the ratio of bags per person in somewhere like Westfield in Shepherds Bush seems to be somewhat less than usual, however our national weekend pastime of shopping - or even window shopping - does not seem to have gone away as yet.
However, we may be deluding ourselves into thinking that economically we are past the worst. After all, the recession is over |
|
