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Retailers will use 'Every Tactic' to avert 'Crisis Christmas'

25 十一月 2008

UNITED KINGDOM — Today, exactly a month before Christmas Day, Synovate Retail Performance (formerly SPSL) publishes its footfall forecast for December. It expects that retailers will need to use every tactic at their disposal to ramp up consumer motivation to shop in their stores, if they are to avoid a 'crisis Christmas'. Synovate's forecast is that the number of non-food shopping trips that people make in December will be a very significant 7.3% down on 2007. This is far worse than the 4% year-on-year monthly deficit that Synovate predicted in July would at some stage mark the footfall nadir of 2008.

Synovate's Dr Tim Denison said; "Despite some of the pecuniary pressures lightening over the last month or so and yesterday's VAT reduction, which incidentally reduces the final retail price of VAT-able goods by only 2.1%, the current evidence is that the number of non-food shopping trips being made by households in the UK is still falling and likely to fall further. A general lack of confidence and heightened concerns over job security seem to be uppermost in influencing attitudes and behaviour, taking precedence in people's minds over falls in energy and fuel prices, interest rates and VAT. No doubt people are encouraged by the changes underway that help to reduce the cost of living, but they will not have come soon enough to disperse the cloud of nervousness hanging over Christmas shopping.

"However, retailers are using every tactic at their disposal to stimulate trade and, by our calculations, last week's promotional activities bolstered retail footfall on the high street by as much as 4%, so it is certainly not the case that all is lost and cannot be influenced by retail strategists. Where there are compelling offers, there is still latent demand but retailers cannot afford to run such deep-cut events every day in the run-up to Christmas, so inevitably the effect of the stimuli will, unless very creatively renewed, be sporadic and short-lived.

"Christmas 2008 is already shaping up to be very different from recent ones. I envisage more of us abandoning the highly-commercialised rumpus that has become Christmas Present and returning to the back-to-basics of Christmas Past. This will see parents and grandparents provide for young children in their families first, and, if necessary, forgo so much spending on each other. People will think twice about how much they spend on the Christmas trappings this year. Instead they will concentrate on spending where it means the most to them; particularly on seeing the smiles on young faces and enjoying the reward from their shrieks of joy on Christmas morning.

"I know that every year retailers and some industry commentators are criticised for doom-mongering and fearing the worst. This year, however, there is just cause for such concern. The spectre of weak demand is overshadowing every retailer on the high street. I believe it will only be the exceptional ones that emerge into a potentially bleaker New Year unscathed. I truly hope we are wrong but over thirteen years' worth of robust and accurate data and well-proven analysis says otherwise."