Small retailers in distress

 Increase in small retailers in distress

Thousands of small retailers are facing collapse as lacklustre sales, heavy discounting, increased wages and the fall in the value of sterling pushes companies to breaking point, according to Begbies Traynor. Begbies said that 21,802 retailers across the country were suffering from “significant” financial distress, up 6% compared with the same period last year. Most of these, about 21,150, are small and medium-sized. Julie Palmer, a partner at the firm, said: “After the largest high street and online retailers kicked off their festive discounting extra early this year, small businesses, whose margins and cost bases are already stretched to the limit, are undoubtedly the biggest victims of the increasingly cut-throat UK retail environment… With the sector’s quarterly rent day just around the corner, retailers across the country will be pinning all their hopes on a last-minute sales surge from shoppers who have left it too late for online deliveries, to help tip them over into the black.”

Source:   The Independent (22/12/2016)