More retailers hit the wall

Following my last journal entry, three more high profile retailers have entered administration. Furniture store Habitat, Homeform (the owners of Moben Kitchens, Sharps Bedrooms and Dolphin Bathrooms) and fashion house Jane Norman have all fallen during the past week, with all citing poor sales and weak consumer demand as the culprit.

All three worked in challenging and competitive markets, and one could conceivably argue that the malaise on the High Street is simply weeding out some of the weaker retailers, whose long term prospects were not that great, whilst the stronger retailers just get stronger.

However, one only needs to look at recent sales figures from Argos / Homebase, and announcements today by Carpetright and Thorntons  - who are both closing stores -  to see that the poor sales and weak growth is spread right across a wide range of retailers - even giant Tesco's UK like-for-like sales were flat for the first quarter of 2011.

The prospects for the remainder of 2011 remain bleak - hard pressed consumers, hit by rising fuel, energy and food prices and poor job security - are putting major purchases on hold, and judging by recent trends, also paring back on the little luxuries and concentrating on the essentials. Until confidence improves, one has to wonder how many more retailers will soon follow this week's casualties