More city centre shops will be lost in 2010 as retailers suffered the worst December for 30 years, this is putting to one side the 11 months previous, with the internet being a place to find a bargain, many saved hundreds this Christmas by shopping online, also avoiding the NCP car parking prices in most towns.
This year the sales started in November and the heavy discounting hit retailers margins even before the January sales started, across the UK shopper numbers were 3.1% lower during December than they had been in the same month of 2007, despite a massive 12.8% jump in footfall during the last week of the month compared with the same period the previous year.
All economic forecasts tell us more retailers are going to go into administration and unfortunately we are going to see some more losses, many towns and cities are urging people to support their local businesses and buy local produce whenever they can, but to be fair when you ask them to price match they talk about service? Only you can decide at what cost?
The first few months of the year are traditionally very difficult and they are likely to be even worse in 2009, business should have made provisions when times were good to get them through this difficult period expert advise, perhaps this is why bullying in the workplace is also now on the increase? See BBC NEWS it is feared people will be less likely to complain of bullying because of concerns they could lose their job, at times of organisational change when it needs to be done quite rapidly, people will adopt whatever means to achieve an end, when this happens there are many employment laws to protect this type of behaviour and that’s when you need ACAS, they are an organisation devoted to preventing and resolving employment disputes, it’s all FREE.
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