High street bargains keep Britons spending despite slump

[Roach-Rampino]

A wave of aggressive discounts to tempt consumers to carry on spending despite the recession delivered a surprise fillip to the high street last month, official figures revealed yesterday.
Stores and shopping centres across the country, as well as online retailers, confounded predictions that sales would slump as the economic downturn and a rising toll of job losses sent anxious Britons into headlong retreat from the shops.

The quantity of goods sold by retailers last month dipped by only 0.1 per cent, after a 0.5 per cent drop in September. That left sales still 1.9 per cent higher than the level a year ago, the Office for National Statistics reported.

In the three months to the end of October, the volume of goods sold was also unchanged from the previous three-month period.

The figures suggested that promotions and big discounts from some retailers were succeeding in luring shoppers into their stores. Sharp discounts offered by online retailers and mail-order operators fighting for custom in the crucial run-up to Christmas helped to raise their sales by 0.9 per cent.
Overall trading last month was buoyed by a jump in food sales as people opted to eat at home more, rather than go out to restaurants.

“The UK consumer continues to show an unexpected, and surprising, degree of resilience,” said Geoffrey Dicks, of Royal Bank of Scotland.

The amount of cash spent at the nation’s tills last month was up by 4.2 per cent on September. That increase almost matched the average surge in spending of 4.8 per cent seen during recent years in the build-up to Christmas between those two months, Mr Dicks noted.

Overall prices across all retailers fell by 0.8 per cent last month, with prices charged by online retailers tumbling by 1.2 per cent.

Experts predicted that Christmas shoppers would continue to enjoy a bonanza of bargains and discounts as retailers resorted to even steeper price cuts.

“We suspect many retailers will increasingly feel the need to engage in discounting, special promotions and flash sales in the run-up to Christmas to try to get hard-pressed consumers to spend,” Howard Archer, of IHS Global Insight, a consultancy, said.
Stephen Robertson, the director-general of the British Retail Consortium, said that although conditions on the high street were making things hard for retailers, more price cuts made it “a great time \ to pick up a bargain for Christmas”. Not all retail sectors succeeded in staving off a slide in sales in the face of mounting economic woes, however, and there were warnings from some economists that the benign picture shown by the official figures could well prove misleading.

The stores groups most exposed to the impact of the downturn, notably household goods outlets, which are suffering because of the house price slump, were hit hard.

Sales of items such as fridges, washing machines and furniture fell by 3.4 per cent last month.
Clothing retailers also struggled, with their sales down 1.5 per cent. At department stores, the amount of goods sold was down by 1 per cent.

The apparent conflict between yesterday’s data and rival industry figures fuelled further controversy over the reliability of the official numbers.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/mon...cle5201817.ece

[MajorFU]

This is as much or a poor indication of things to come as our booming economy of yesteryear was that turned out to be nothing more than a debt bubble waiting to burst.

As much as there is great stuff out there at great prices that I am tempted to buy, I am also extremely concious of the fact my employers still have 6000 jobs to cut following a recent announcement. I'm sure much of this spending was heaped onto credit cards and overdrafts and in the long run what people consider stimulating the economy now will in fact equate to bailiffs reclaiming goods against unpaid debt and people enevetablly losing their homes.

Unless a real politician is prepared to tell the public the truth and adjust income tax to stablize the economy and pay for all this international borrowing then we are basically doomed. Instead we have Gordon Brown who after flushing a healthy economy down the toilet has managed to potray himself as a national hero which the ignorant cunts that voted labour in in the 1st place have obviously fallen for hook line and sinker.

Now when I say "it didn't take a genious to see all this coming the day they got voted in" I mean I consider myself above average intellegance but by no means a genius yet saw this coming the day the torries lost. Why? i hear you all ask...the answer for this is a simple 1....they do it every time!! yet people ignore fact and due to the lazy claiming nature of the average brit are happy to get lead around by the nose so long as they keep their benefits.

[Eric]

I'm sure much of this spending was heaped onto credit cards and overdrafts and in the long run what people consider stimulating the economy now will in fact equate to bailiffs reclaiming goods against unpaid debt .

Not true, you would need to be taken to court and have a CCJ against you first, if the judge says you can only afford £1 a month then so be it. Only if you fail to pay that are you at risk of losing possesions. To be honest it is very unlikely that any Credit Card company would take you to court if you paid them £5 per month.

I consider myself above average intellegance but by no means a genius.

You may well be, but you need to research before saying things about bailiffs and courts. Bailiffs have as much power as the paperboy delivring your paper, unless they are instructed by a court. No ifs or buts.

[CzarJunkie]

This is as much or a poor indication of things to come as our booming economy of yesteryear was that turned out to be nothing more than a debt bubble waiting to burst.

As much as there is great stuff out there at great prices that I am tempted to buy, I am also extremely concious of the fact my employers still have 6000 jobs to cut following a recent announcement. I'm sure much of this spending was heaped onto credit cards and overdrafts and in the long run what people consider stimulating the economy now will in fact equate to bailiffs reclaiming goods against unpaid debt and people enevetablly losing their homes.

Unless a real politician is prepared to tell the public the truth and adjust income tax to stablize the economy and pay for all this international borrowing then we are basically doomed. Instead we have Gordon Brown who after flushing a healthy economy down the toilet has managed to potray himself as a national hero which the ignorant cunts that voted labour in in the 1st place have obviously fallen for hook line and sinker.

Now when I say "it didn't take a genious to see all this coming the day they got voted in" I mean I consider myself above average intellegance but by no means a genius yet saw this coming the day the torries lost. Why? i hear you all ask...the answer for this is a simple 1....they do it every time!! yet people ignore fact and due to the lazy claiming nature of the average brit are happy to get lead around by the nose so long as they keep their benefits.

What utter bollocks, the last government to lead us into a recession was the tories. The only difference now is the recession under the tories was as a direct result of their flawed economic polices, whereas the recession about to hit us has more to do with global factors and the world economy.

We're one of many industrialised nations who are heading into or are already in recession. Are you going to blame the labour government for those too?

[MajorFU]

its not utter bolloks

the torries had the right idea, they reacted to the same situation and spotted a potential debt bubble wating to burst and instead of sitting back and letting it happen they raised the interest rates so high it scared the shit out of anyone thinking of borrowing. Unfortunately they paniced and raised it too high and while the banks made enough to not need the loans that have been given this time around the public lost out

but then as the problem had been caused by irresponsible public borrowing it made sense that it was them who lost out and paid it back (rather than being a nation of lazy cunts who expext their kids to do it)

now not only have we seen ridiculous levels of public borrowing but the govt has been at it too amassing debts of around 600m on the war and another 400m to bail out the banks + a few other bits and bobs the debt is now 1.2trn +

so while the torries use frugal living to get us out of a recession the labour boyz think adding more debt will work as well? out of the proverbial frying pan is the only way to describe the situation we are in. the increased national debt has killed and i mean slaughtered the pound in the last month and this is just the beginning

so once again i say labour voters are cunts who are happy for the next generation and the one after to pay for their decedance and while im not sure the torries are much better I am saying we need honest politics and an honest economy that doesn't fix a burst debt bubble by sending us into more debt but by making those who benefitted when times were good pay it off

I also remember that the UK recovered much and I mean much faster than france germany or the usa after the last recession because its people that worked and paid their taxes made it happen and kept the UK as 1 of the financial superpowers of the world.

So the torries may have caused the last recession but they did it to stop a depression, new Labour have sat back and let the credit crunch happen and watched the bubble burst big time and made themselves look good by piling it all on the national debt, not sure what the long term effects of this will be but I have a theory...as I have said before nothing and I mean nothing this big goes wrong unless the powers that be want it to and maybe a weaker pound will make the labour possee look like fucking heros when they offer to wipe the debt by joining the euro. That is right we are being softened up for the euro and everyone will fall for it...problem-reaction-solution we know it was top of their agenda when they got in but nobody wanted it so they shelved it...now they will use it as a solution to the problems that they caused, remember where u read it 1st

[MajorFU]

Ahhh more honest politics from brown today, so instead of raising taxes to start to clear the debt and steer the country away from depression he borrows another £20bn and lowers VAT.

Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed