Retail sales boom in Scotland due to hard price-cutting
Annual growth in the total value of Scottish retail sales rocketed from 4.8% in December to 8.1% in January, industry figures revealed yesterday.
This acceleration is truly stunning at a time of mounting evidence that consumers in the UK as a whole are tightening their belts in the face of higher mortgage payments, renewed hikes in electricity and gas bills, and a fastcooling housing market.
The 8.1% yearonyear rise in sales value in January was the greatest since an annual increase of 9.4% in March 2007.
The Scottish Retail Consortium, which produced the figures, attempted to play down the strength of sales in January by noting that the period covered by its latest survey included an additional day of trading prior to New Year. The January monitor covers the five weeks from December 30 2007 to February 2 this year. The monitor for January last year covered the period from December 31 to January 27.
However, the period covered by the latest monitor is the same as that for the British Retail Consortium’s recentlypublished,UKwide January sales figures. These showed a yearonyear increase in total retail sales value of 4.9% for the UK as a whole a buoyant figure but way adrift of the 8.1% north of the border. This indicates the Scottish retail sector is still booming, although the SRC highlighted discounting to achieve sales.
Total retail sales value gives a better indication of overall consumer spending.
However, even stripping out the beneficial impact of a net expansion of floorspace to give a measure focused on how retailers are faring, sales value in Scotland in January was up 3.5% on a year earlier. This represented a dramatic acceleration of this likeforlike measure of retail sales growth from an annual pace of 0.4% in December.
Food sales were buoyant during January, with SRC director Fiona Moriarty noting that healthyeating ranges and "superfoods" such as blueberries had been in demand after the festive period.
Annual growth in total Scottish food sales accelerated from 4.7% in December to 9.2% in January.
The yearonyear increase in sales in the nonfood category north of the border picked up sharply, from 4.8% to 7.0%.
In spite of the buoyant sales growth, Moriarty claimed: "It was a case of new year, new regime for customers. Tougher conditions for personal finances meant customers reined in spending. The apparent upturn in Scottish sales only came as a result of a lot of pricecutting "It’s clear value will be the watchword for customers and retailers in 2008."
Original source : The Herald
