JD Sports warns of tough Christmas to come

Sports fashion retailer JD Sports says sales have slowed and the coming Christmas will be tough as consumer confidence ebbs.

The group, which operates 350 outlets in the UK under a range of names, said sales in the 16 weeks to November fell 1.5%.

It said consumer confidence had seen a marked decline since mid September.

But the company's statement said that the group was still likely to meet earnings' expectations for the year.

JD Sport, which was heavily targeted in this summer's riots, and also has shops branded Size and Chausport, said: "Performance since 17 September has been impacted by the continuing downward pressures on all elements of discretionary consumer spending and the recent marked decline in consumer confidence.

"Although we anticipate a tough Christmas trading period, our management and staff have a good track record for mobilising effectively through this key time of the year."

Outside the UK, JD Sport operates outlets in France, Spain and the Republic of Ireland.

It also has stores in New Zealand and Australia, where it said the Rugby World Cup had helped its Canterbury business to perform well.

Arcadia set to close up to 260 stores as profits fall

Arcadia, the owner of Top Shop and BhS, reported a 38% fall in annual profits to £133m and says it expects to close up to 260 stores in the next few years.

Arcadia boss Sir Philip Green told the BBC the closures would come as store leases came up for renewal.

It also reported same-store UK sales down by 1.8%.

The group, which owns Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, said it expected heavy discounts on the high street this Christmas.

Total sales at its 3,100 outlets worldwide were down by 3.4% and sales have worsened, falling 4.4% since the start of the new financial year.

Sir Philip told the BBC: "We have got - from my memory - 450 or 460 stores where leases expire in the next three years. And I think on our latest summary we will close more than half of those on lease expiry. So I would say, I would expect us to close 250, 260.

"Now, there may be other opportunities that turn up that we might want to open. But certainly, in terms of our existing portfolio, currently that's our thinking."

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Arcadia's store collection

• Top Shop
• Top Man
• Miss Selfridge
• BhS
• Dorothy Perkins
• Wallis
• Burtons
• Evans
• Outfit

Sir Philip said the warm weather had made trading difficult for many retailers: "It's been the hottest October and November in history. Nobody can deal with that. Winter goods are tough.

"Trading conditions remain extremely challenging, with style, quality and value at the top of our agenda and more important than ever."

He said the economic climate had heightened people's value of money: "I do believe everybody today is more financially aware than they've ever been in their life."

Sir Philip said the firm had decided not to pass on certain higher business costs and this had squeezed its profit margin by 1.8 percentage points, costing it £52.4m.

The billionaire's Arcadia group is one of the biggest private employers in Britain, with over 44,000 staff in its 2,500 UK stores.

Bicester Outlet Village

Will Westfield Stratford continue to attract crowds after the Olympics?

With the ticker-tape pomp and circumstance usually reserved for armies returning from war, Westfield Stratford threw open its doors with a flourish yesterday. 

The opening ceremony of Europe’s largest shopping centre proved a curious melange of the glamorous and the mundane. 

Former Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger’s frisson of Hollywood glitz faded slightly as she sashayed down an escalator past a branch of Sports Direct. 

Landmark: Thousands flocked to the opening of the Stratford mall

London Mayor Boris Johnson provided the comic turn, christening the £1.45billion retail behemoth with a risqué joke about scandal-hit former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn. 

Even now, Boris said, the streets of Paris are alive with talk of ‘Le Westfield’ and the opportunity it offers for French financial politicians to placate their wives with a discounted Hermes scarf.

But while the opening ceremony sailed by jauntily, doubts linger about the viability of this vast temple of consumerism. 

The firm had to offer massive rent discounts to lure retailers to Westfield London and property experts believe it has done the same to entice the 250 retailers and 70 food outlets at Stratford. 

Speaking to the Daily Mail, the chief executive of one of Britain’s largest retailers expressed private doubts about whether Westfield Stratford could keep attracting crowds after the Olympics. 

Previous host cities, Athens a prime example, have been saddled with crumbling ghost towns that don’t offer much hope for a thriving community of potential shoppers in East London.

Frank Lowy, the Hungarian-born entrepreneur behind Westfield, has no such qualms. 

In a brief speech, he recalled the disbelief that greeted him when he opened Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush, just as the economy was heading into recession. 

That centre is now doing a roaring trade, he pointed out, defying all the critics. 

Its Stratford sister expects to match its predecessor by pulling in a £700m turnover in the first year and £1bn a year by 2014. 

Yet the gulf between Shepherd’s Bush and Stratford is more than just geographical. London’s other Westfield can draw on a densely-populated district containing several affluent, recession-resistant postcodes. 

Stratford does not have that luxury. The flip side of that coin is that a successful Westfield Stratford spells bad news for the shopkeepers of Newham. 

Unless local retailers have a hotline to Boris or a Pussycat Doll, Westfield’s vast shadow could starve them of much-needed light.

New Westfield shopping centre in Stratford 'will kill local market'

Small businesses have warned that the taxpayer is unwittingly funding the destruction of the High Street after it emerged that the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre benefited from public money.

Of £350m spent around the mall – which saw a performance from Nicole Scherzinger, pictured, when doors opened this week – Westfield contributed £150m, with the remainder coming out of the public purse.

Bridges and roads funded by the taxpayer will be used to ferry visitors into Stratford for next year’s Olympics.

But a spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses said the shopping centre also stood to benefit at the expense of local shopkeepers.

‘You can only get to the Olympic Park by going through Westfield,’ she said. 

‘People are being channelled through it rather than Stratford market, which relies heavily on passing trade. 

‘Why is there funding for this massive consumer offering when there isn’t funding to develop the local offering that Stratford has?’

A spokesm

an for the Olympic Delivery Authority said the local community would benefit from infrastructure and new jobs associated with the £1.45bn shopping centre.

Shopping online can take six times LONGER than a visit to the high street

It is heralded as the way to enjoy quick and stress-free shopping. But buying clothes online could actually take six times longer than a visit to the high street, according to research.

The supposed ease of online shopping has seen it become one of the fastest growing sectors in the market place, accounting for about 15 per cent of all purchases.

But a study, by fashion event Clothes Show Live, found that on average it takes women 22 hours to find one purchase online, compared to 3.6 hours when they wander around the shops.

Show producer Maryam Hamizadeh said: ‘Shopping online may seem like a quick and easy option, but our research shows that it is nowhere near as enjoyable as a visit to the shops, and in fact takes nearly six times as long to find an item of clothing.’

More than 3,000 people were questioned for the study, which was released alongside Keep Shopping Live – a campaign to encourage support for declining high street stores. 

It also found that eight out of ten women preferred a trawl around the shops, whereas the same number of men preferred to do their shopping online.

Furthermore, around half of women said the most enjoyable way for them to spend their free time was to go shopping, whereas men with time on their hands preferred to spend it in the pub.

Miss Hamizadeh added: ‘Shopping is best enjoyed, not from the comfort of a sofa or desk, but when out there in the real world in a shop or store. We’re dedicated to supporting “offline” shopping in order to stop the decline of the high street.

Let’s support local businesses by keeping shopping live.’

The survey found that, on average, women spend 22 hours shopping online each month and 18 hours in real stores. They buy around five items of clothing each month, with only one of these online.

More than 37million Britons shop online each year and recent figures from e-retail body IMRG found that spending on fashion websites rose by 21 per cent in October compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, internet shopping giant eBay is opening an experimental ‘bricks and mortar’ store in London for five days.

However, it will not have any tills and only a limited selection of products, none of which shoppers can take away with them.

Instead, 200 of the bestselling items will  be on display for customers to inspect  and buy online.

You wouldn't have bid on that? eBay to open its first high street store in Britain

Ebay is to open its first bricks and mortar outlet in Britain.

A five-day experiment by the online auction and shopping website will begin on December 1, at the height of the Christmas shopping season.

The shop on Dean Street, just off Oxford Street in London, will feature a display of 200 predicted best-sellers, including an inflatable ride-in Dalek toy and a party dress from House of Fraser.

Buy it now: eBay's headquarters in San Jose, California. The auction website has announced they are going to open a store off London's Oxford Street

There will be no tills and customers will not be able to buy on the spot. But there will be a tablet computer zone where shoppers will be able to browse the website and buy the items over the internet.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062932/eBay-open-high-street-store-Britain.html#ixzz1e9XyBl2E