Scottish high street sales slow but still outpace UK

IN THE final official monthly industry snapshot before the festive rush, Scottish retailers have reported that shoppers held off in November, in the hope of some pre-Christmas bargains.

The Scottish Retail Consortium statistics, put together and analysed by Royal Bank of Scotland, showed like-for-like sales in November were 2.6 per cent higher than in November 2005, when they had risen 1.6 per cent. Total sales in November were 7 per cent up on a year ago - and both performances were better than comparable UK figures.

The monthly sales result was the weakest since March on a like-for-like basis and marginally below the average for the year to date, said Fiona Moriarty, director of the SRC, but she warned against "drawing any doom-and-gloom conclusions about Christmas".

She added: "Strong food sales meant better growth than in November 2005 and there is also some evidence of a pre-Christmas boost to larger furniture sales, as we get our homes ready for Christmas. Clothing retailers have reported a welcome increase in shoppers' interest in smarter occasion wear in the lead-up to the party season.

"However, on the downside, healthy sales of big-ticket items, including televisions and computers, have often been dependent on discounting and the mild weather is still putting people off buying traditional winter clothing."

RBS group chief economist Andrew McLaughlin concluded that consumers were holding off shopping in the belief that pre-Christmas sales discounts would be introduced by retailers: "This contributes to a late surge in spending but reduces the early build-up of sales that used to characterise November.

"And although spending growth north of the Border has slowed, it did not slow by as much as the UK as a whole."

That 7 per cent total for Scotland compared with a 2.5 per cent for total UK, and the 2.6 per cent like-for-like to 0.5 per cent Britain-wide. But still, it was the third month running that total sales growth (including stores opened in the past year) slipped. The regular monitor is based on responses from a large sample of retailers with outlets in Scotland and is based on sales.

• Debenhams is suffering a further deterioration in sales. The group, which has 135 stores, said like-for-like sales were 4.7 per cent lower since the start of September. The measure had been down 4.2 per cent when Debenhams last updated the market on 24 October.

Chairman John Lovering told its annual meeting that trading remained difficult, but stressed the remaining weeks of December and the early January period were some of the biggest of the year and could still have a "significant impact" on sales growth.

The comments came as no surprise to City analysts after Woolworths recently warned that it was likely to miss profits forecasts.

CHRISTMAS MAY FALL TO 9.15BN

RESEARCH from Sainsbury's Bank is putting this year's retail spend during the week before Christmas at 9.15 billion - 446.6 million less that last year. Around 18 per cent of last-minute Christmas shopping (1.62bn) will be on credit cards by 6.54 million people.

The estimates suggest men intend to spend 257.15 and women 173.69.

Separately, moneysupermarket.com suggests that some shoppers could take a decade to pay off their spending if they pay just a minimum repayment every month on an average 400 spend this year, based on a typical APR of 15.9 per cent.