Hard year could end in a soft landing

Jan 8 2008 By Andrew Mernin

Festive fortunes

With the festive period over for another year much lip service has been paid to how badly certain retail brands fared during the Christmas rush.

But how did North-East firms perform over the period? We spoke to some of the region's leading players in the retail sector to find out more.

The Metro Centre, Gateshead 

According to the management at one of Europe's largest shopping malls, the company had busy malls and a number of retailers reported very positive sales at the top of their groups. Many retailers commented that Christmas shopping was later this year in comparison to previous years and this was confirmed with a very busy last minute shopping spree. There was a noticeable increase in footfall particularly on Sunday 23rd December and Christmas Eve as customers made last minute gift purchases, taking advantage of some of the price reductions which took place pre-Christmas. Over 260 stores traded, with significantly increased footfall of +6% on Boxing Day last year, and that pattern continued into Thursday 27th December where sales fever started at 5am with the Next sale followed by Marks & Spencer at 6am, both experiencing very brisk activity. By 10am on 27th December the malls were full and it was the busiest day of the year so far with footfall comparable to last year.

Metro Centre general manager Barry Turnbull said: " We are seeing very busy malls and a number of retailers reporting positive sales. Business was been brisk in the run up to Christmas with footfall showing growth on the year overall. The malls are full of keen shoppers at present and as always bargains and special offers are very well supported, however there has also been a huge demand for electrical games including Wii and Nintendo DS, illustrating that consumers have a very mixed shopping bag combining the high end goods with price conscious products."

TOFFS, Gateshead

Despite several leading retailers enduring a tough festive period, the Replica football shirt firm said it had enjoyed  better-than-expected Christmas trade.

Alan Finch, who runs the business with his wife Michele, said: “We were up on Christmas 2006 and 2005 which is amazing considering there wasn’t a tournament last year. I would say we are up by around 20%. Business has been very good although shirt sales were down financially we were up thanks to other products such as historical books and DVDs. Online sales were tremendous and we almost didn’t have a single complaint about non-delivery and we were delivering right up to Christmas Eve."

Benfield motors, several locations across the North-East, North-West and Yorkshire

While the motor industry may not be as reliant on a good festive trading period as other retailer sectors like electronics or toys, Christmas trading still plays its part in car sales firms delivering positive annual results. 

Chief executive Mark Squires (pictured) said: “We’ve seen no evidence of that trading loss and I’m concerned that there’s a lot of media hype and there’s a danger that the media may take the consumers into a loss of confidence. In the North-East we are more isolated than somewhere like the South-East from market conditions so [turmoil in the markets] doesn't have the same impact on us as in other areas."

Collectables, Alnwick, Gateshead, Harrogate, Newcastle, Stockton, Sunderland 

David Lewis, who runs the high street chain of gift shops, said: "Before Christmas we did less advertising than last year and it was a tough Christmas. We did like for like sales on the previous Christmas when you would expect 2 or 3% growth. But the January sales have been very good so far and we are currently 20% up on Christmas trading. Christmas was good for us but getting growth was hard."