Fears mount over deliveries as snow closes stores and shoppers shun out-of-town malls in favour of high street
Fears are mounting that Britain's shoppers could find themselves staring at empty shelves if the treacherous weather continues in the run-up to Christmas.
As blocked roads, freezing temperatures and snow hit what is traditionally the busiest shopping weekend of the year, many customers stayed away ? especially from shops in less accessible out-of-town centres ? and deliveries of stock to the retailers ran into difficulties.
London's 120-store Brent Cross shopping centre was forced to close on Saturday due to "adverse weather conditions". The New West End Company, which represents 600 retailers on Oxford Street, Bond Street and Regent Street, estimated about 1 million shoppers had visited their stores over the weekend ? fewer than the 1.2 million customers they had expected based on last year's figures.
The grocery chain Waitrose said sales on Saturday were down 11% on the year before, while the John Lewis reported a 10% decrease.
The fallout from this weekend may be felt far and wide, especially if the adverse weather conditions continue into Christmas.
Apart from the difficulty of getting customers to out-of-town shopping centres, many of which can only be accessed by roads, there is also is an increasing danger that shops may no longer have a full range of stock.
Although there have been no reported cases of shops running out of anything yet, retail analysts said such a scenario was a very real possibility.
Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said: "If this weather persists it is going to be very disruptive to deliveries to supermarkets. Supply chains have been massively hit by the snow and ice this month, with many products being stuck at container ports for an extended period.
"Deliveries are going to be hit by this weekend's weather and a lot is going to depend on the weather in the coming week, which isn't looking good at the moment," he said.
Richard Perks, the director of retail research at the Verdict consultancy, pointed out that Britain's retail distribution system is generally very efficient, but he said that "fresh food stores could suffer" from the weather conditions.
Perks was himself fuming after a choice bottle of wine, ordered online and due to be delivered last Wednesday, had still not arrived, due to the weather.
Tesco and Marks & Spencer insisted there were no problems with the delivery of stock to their stores and said they did not anticipate running out of any products in the run-up to Christmas.
John Lewis's retail director, Andrew Murphy, conceded that there had been delays in some areas to deliveries that had been due by Saturday night, but he was confident those supplies would have reached their destination by last night or this morning.
"Obviously the deliveries of some items will be compromised in some areas, but in terms of overall stock levels I'm confident we will be back up to where we would have been by tomorrow morning," he said.
He added, though, that if the retailer was presented with extreme weather conditions in the next few days he could not rule out stock shortages in some areas.
If the weather does improve, there could be a last minute dash to the shops, as customers seek to make up for lost time.
"We could well see a lot of people taking the day off at the last minute," said Archer.
And there may be bargains to be had as retailers are forced to cut prices to shift unsold stock.
Douglas McWilliams, chief executive of the economic thinktank the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said: "We could well see the January sales start before Christmas this year, which will put huge pressure on the retailers' profits."
Any drastic price reduction before Christmas would be particularly bad news for online retailers and out-of-town shopping malls, which have already been hit particularly hard by the recent weather, as internet deliveries have been delayed or cancelled and shoppers have found it difficult to reach out-of-the-way destinations.
The traditional high street has benefited from the out-of-town malls' woes. Shoppers have opted to visit them because they are located in town or city centres well served by public transport, rather than place online orders that may not arrive in time, or risk getting stranded on the motorway on the way to an out-of-town centre.
This may have cushioned the impact of the bad weather on the high street retailers.
Human rights Ann Widdecombe Road trips Tuition fees Boxing Wildlife
No comments:
Post a Comment