With just seven days left in the run-up to Christmas, the latest figures from retail analysts Springboard, published over the weekend, revealed that the weekend weather – rain, gales, snow and plummeting temperatures – did little to boost high street sales, with numbers estimated to be 9% lower than the same weekend in 2017.
Independent gift retailers too, have indicated that so far, the festive season seems to be a bit of a mixed bag – very good for some, more challenging for others – as they told GiftsandHome.net.
“So far it’s been brilliant,” enthused Evelyn O’Flaherty, who co-owns two Mooch gift shops in Ealing with Sandra O’Connell. “We’ve been really, really busy. We’re definitely busier than last year this time and the good news is that the average spend is up.” Adds Evelyn, “we’re finding that lots of people are ‘shopping small’, preferring to visit their local retailers rather than heading into town.”
However, at Spirito in Glasgow, owner Denise Laird highlighted that Christmas has been very different to last year. “From the start of November 2017, we were all go and off to a flying start. However, November this year was slower. The weather was wet, there was Black Friday and there were a lot of other offers online. However, since the beginning of December, it has been good with customers buying across the board so hopefully it will continue in the final run up.”
Julianne Moore, owner of MiMi in Hartley Wintney, commented: “Christmas has really crept up on us this year with the mild weather, lack of shoppers and Brexit. However, MiMi is holding its own in this volatile market place. In the last two months, we have experienced our worst footfall in eight years of trading, but our spend per head is significantly up so our figures will match last year.” She continued: “We still have new customers flooding through our doors who have heard about us through word of mouth – the best advertising we can have -and who are looking for individuality on the high street. It’s been a real tale of two halves, but I’m proud we are weathering the storm, as many are not.”
At The Bottle Kiln in West Hallam, owner Nic Stone, commenting at the end of last week, said that Christmas has been a bit patchy, although generally quite good. “At the time of writing – mid December – we look on track to at least equal our previous best Christmas and could, at a push, just beat it, which, considering our 33 years of trading, and all of the madness out there, is quite something. A lot will depend on the weather holding now, so fingers crossed!”
Online, gift retailer Adam Gore, managing director of Find Me A Gift, emphasised that Amazon is the major challenger.“Q4 has been a very challenging time for online retailers whose name isn’t Amazon,” he stated. “Our revenue and profit have been affected by Google’s algorithm update at the end of September which has enabled Amazon to appear multiple times above most other websites in Google’s organic results. Additionally, Amazon appears to have massively increased their online advertising spend which is putting even more pressure on normal online retailers and driving up our costs.”
Top: It’s all to play for this week, with retailers hoping for better weather.
