UP TO four hundred shops will be forced out of business this month alone as retailers experience their worst January in recent years, a lobby group said yesterday.
Very poor sales figures for the first three weeks of the year come on top of a disastrous Christmas for many shops and tens of thousands of jobs are now at serious risk, Retail Excellence Ireland (REI) has warned.
The group, which represents more than 8,500 shops, blamed the January sales collapse on the continuing economic and political turmoil, a complete absence of consumer confidence and a realisation among people about how hard they have been hit by tax increases announced in last month’s Budget.
It warned that rules that prohibit leaseholders negotiating lower rents were artificially inflating prices and meant it would be impossible for many businesses to remain open. It pleaded with any new government to take immediate steps to save the retail sector.
The group’s quarterly review covering the last three months of 2010, showed sales had declined for the 34th month in a row. A sector-by-sector breakdown indicated footwear was the only sector to record growth in the last quarter of the year with shoe sales up 3 per cent on last year as people went in search of footwear that could cope with December’s snow.
Sales of women’s clothes performed worst in the quarter and were down 8.6 per cent year on year.
REI chief executive David Fitzsimons warned that the impact of the Budget “together with the current political uncertainty and prospect of a general election” would hamper any prospects of an immediate return to growth.
Mr Fitzsimons said the Government had focused on the collapse of the banking sector at the expense of other sectors of the economy. “The domestic economy is being left behind,” he said.
