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The Shopping Centre Christmas Spend
Date Posted: 10/12/2010
Unfortunately the Christmas sales are already in a delicate state due to the recent snow and difficult weather. Experian recently reported that the national retail footfall is down by 10% compared to this time last year with the worst affected areas in Yorkshire and Humberside down 24%; Scotland down 14% and the North East down 13%. This is a critical shopping time for Retailers and Shopping Centres and has created a shaky start to the Christmas spend. Many Centre Managers have told Foundation Recruitment that due to the weather they have struggled to reach their Shopping Centres and some cleaning and security staffs have not been able to reach the schemes. The weather has also proven difficult during the recruitment process for Shopping Centre Manager Vacancies as candidates have struggled to visit schemes and Foundation Recruitment are finding it a challenging time for all.
Weather aside there is still some optimism in the economy and the British Retail Consortium reported that the UK retail sales values were up 0.7% on a like-for-like basis from November 2009. However this increase is still a little weak and Shopping Centre landlords and retailers will be hoping that the weather disruption will ease in order to try and make up for ground lost over the last couple of weeks. Transport appears to be getting back to normality for most parts of the UK and therefore we hope to see the footfall increase. The covered shopping centres like the Trafford Centre and Westfield London must surely have found it an advantage to be a warm and enclosed scheme.
Foundation Recruitment are hoping that a strong spending Christmas will make the Shopping Centre market an attractive option for investors; often when a centre a changes hands there is a change of personnel leading to an increase in vacancies.
We will hold our breath as we hope the weather becomes easier and the sales over Christmas are strong for retailers and landlords. The waiting game will not end there and we will brace ourselves again to feel the effects of the change in VAT in January; as usual the fate of the retailers and shopping centres in 2011 is now in the hands of the customer.
December has been an interesting month when speaking to Landlords and many have said that one or more of their Centre Managers plan to retire in 2011 which may lead to an increase in available positions for Centre Managers. This coupled with the movement in changing landlords/managing agents market could lead to a improved job market for Operations and Shopping Centre Managers. It will be an interesting time to watch.