14 chain shops 'close every day' (From The Northern Echo)

14 chain shops 'close every day'

12:05am Friday 17th February 2012 in National News © Press Association 2011

Retailers enjoyed a surprise rise in trade last month as the January sales helped drag shop price inflation to its lowest level for more than two years, official figures revealed.

Sales volumes rose 0.9% between December and January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), whereas the City had expected a 0.4% fall.

The figures suggested that January's shop prices were 2.2% higher than a year ago, the smallest rise since November 2009, as shoppers benefited from falling inflationary pressures and retailers putting on a blizzard of discounts to woo cash-strapped consumers.

Every sector apart from clothes stores reported a slower rate of price increases than the previous month.

But with internet outlets and supermarkets among the biggest drivers of the increase in volumes, fears persist for the future of the high street.

A separate survey has revealed that chains shut an average of 14 shops a day last year as retailers increasingly shifted their focus to out-of-town sites and the internet. It was the first time since 2008 that multiple retailers failed to open as many stores as they closed.

The figures produced by the ONS are seasonally adjusted because January is normally a weaker shopping period than December, but they show that sales volumes in January were 2% higher than a year ago.

Household goods stores saw their first sales growth for nearly a year, up 4.8% month-on-month, as furniture stores put in a particularly strong performance with high levels of discounting. The ONS also said there was anecdotal evidence that sportswear retailers had enjoyed a strong month.

January's strong growth goes against the much more pessimistic picture painted by other anecdotal evidence and retail surveys.

Samuel Tombs, an economist at Capital Economics, said even if the figures are taken at face value, there are reasons to think that the strong growth cannot be maintained. He said: "With unemployment on an upward trend, credit conditions tightening and real incomes still being squeezed, the underlying conditions for consumers are still tough."