Staying local

Another example of how consumers are starting to respond quite significantly to the surge in fuel costs. Experian has produced figures showing that the number of people visiting out-of-town retailers in June fell 5.8pc against the same period last year, compared with a 1.5pc fall in town centres. Average spend per head tends to be much larger for out-of-town shopping visits so the impact on like-for-like sales is going to hit retailers with a strong out-of-town presence pretty hard. But this is good news for the future of local high streets even though the chain supermarkets have been muscling in on this space with their convenience store formats. Great news too for online retailers?

“Experian said there were 282 non-food retail bankruptcies in the three months ended May, up almost 25 percent on the year and suggesting a “dramatic acceleration” in business failures.”