The slump in high street spending has been well documented over the past few months. The decline in sales has been apportioned to a number of factors, the main one being the lack of disposable money now available.
The slump in high street spending has been well documented over the past few months. The decline in sales has been apportioned to a number of factors, the main one being the lack of disposable money now available.
The lack of disposable money (which I think all of us would agree we are suffering from) can be attributed to a number of reasons:
The recent scare mongering about the amount of debt us Brits are in, so much so that credit card spending is expected to be down around 10% for the three months to the end of December compared to last year. We are also choosing to use some of our ‘disposable income’ to pay off more of our debt.
Increases in tax, in particular council and fuel tax is tightening our budgets further.
The increase in the costs of socialising (tax on beers, wines and spirits and cigarettes) means that we are now sacrificing shopping money for socialising money.
The increase in interest rates resulting in more expensive mortgage payments.
All in all the future looks bleak for the high street retailers. As well as the above there are other reasons why we don’t take to the city or town centre as much as we used to. Many supermarkets are expanding into traditional high street lines such as clothing and electronics and providing them at more competitive prices. The expansion of Internet awareness and accessibility has seen an increase in online sales and online retailers, something that the high street has been slow to implement into their own business strategies.
Could this be the death of the high street? I hope not. Hopefully this decline in our spending will lead to a more competitive market place and in turn more value for money for us – the consumer.