Retailers are in for a tough Christmas trading period and the situation will get worse before it gets better, an advisor at Deloitte has said.
Richard Hyman told Reuters that these are the “worse conditions” he has ever seen and this recession will be on a “different” scale to the one witnessed in 1973-74.
He suggested that it is too early to see if the measures introduced by the government in an attempt to help banks will lead to greater optimism in the retail sector.
“When in 18 months or two years or however long it’s going to be until this period of economic hardship is over, I think the retail industry will remain a much lower growth, much lower margin industry than the one we’ve all come to know for years,” he commented.
He said that the full impact of the current struggles has yet to be seen and that the festive period is likely to highlight the problems witnessed by consumers.
The British Retail Consortium this week welcomed the move by the Bank of England to lower the base rate of interest from 5% to 4.5% in an emergency meeting.
