TheRetailer_Summer_19

NEWS FROM THE BRC

TRENDS AND OUTLOOK FOR THE RETAIL SECTOR

kyle monk HEAD OF INSIGHTS AND ANALYTICs british Retail Consortium

A less than stellar summer thus far, strong comps have played a role, however sales and other key retail indicators have underperformed our modest expectations

Summer sales fail to shine A challenging quarter made more so by a challenging comparator period, the royal wedding, men’s football world cup and extended periods of warm weather 2018 contributed to the three month average fall to -1.3% in July. June and July both had the lowest year on year growth for those months since records began in 1995. Online sales continue to decelerate, with total online growth at just 4% in July.

FIGURE 1: TOTAL RETAIL SALES: YoY Growth (%)

-4.0% -3.0% -2.0% -1.0% 0.0% 1.0% 2.0% 3.0% 4.0% 5.0%

% change year-on-year

2018

2019

J F M A M J J A S O N D

FIGURE 2: 3 MONTH ROLLING AVERAGE – YoY FOOTFALL

Shoppers (not) voting with their feet It was also a period of record declines for footfall, the 3 month trend sits at -2.8%, with both June (-2.3%) and July (-1.5%) representing the most pronounced declines on record for those months. High Street and Shopping centres dragged the total trend down, with retail parks reporting an modest increase in visitor numbers at 1.2%.

-8.0% -6.0% -4.0% -2.0% 0.0% 2.0% 4.0%

% change YoY, 3-month Avg

Jun-15

Jun-16

Jun-17 ShoppingCentre

Jun-18

Jun-19

Oct-15

Oct-16

Oct-17

Oct-18

Feb-16

Feb-17

Feb-18

Feb-19

High Street

RetailPark

3-month rollingaverage

FIGURE 3: RETAIL EMPLOYMENT & STORE GROWTH YoY

Structural changes set to accelerate The retail sector shed 145,000 jobs in the last two quarters (Q1 19, Q4 18), despite national unemployment remaining at a historic low of 3.8%. Matching the announcedments from several large retailers in the quarter, he BRC retail employment monitor shows that while the number of stores opened in the last quarter continued to grow, at 2%, employment fell by 2.2%.

the retailer | summer 2019 | 41