The Times (p45) reports that a London Assembly report identifies about 7,000 'small or independent' shops closing over the last 10 years. We can report from our physical walking of every postcode in London that within the main London postcodes of N, NW, E, EC, W, WC, SE and SW that over 16,000 Independent Shops (Comparison, Convenience and Service retail) have closed in the last 5 years! Comparison Goods shops alone account for nearly 9,000 and if you add pubs, restaurants and cafes then the number of Independents that have closed in the last 5 years is 23,911! Where do they get their data from?

Newsletter June 2010

Welcome to our June newsletter. The Budget has delivered what we all expected - more/increased TAXES! Double dip debate abounds and retailers are wrestling with the 20% VAT increase coming in January. Consumers notwithstanding, how will this impact retailers with what has been an additional 5% taken off from their margins in 12 months? Higher prices, less offer and/or more closures?

One thing is for sure, there will be less £££ out there being chased by more retailers and shopping channels than ever before. We will be monitoring the physical changes taking place with our army of field researchers and so are in a position to be your 'radar' when it comes to changes within centres, as well as activities of your competitors.

National vacancy rates have dropped slightly this week to 12.3% - the lowest we have seen in 2010. An ever increasing number of centres are showing a stabilisation of their shop vacancy. A reduction in the number of vacant shops is being seen in the more affluent areas of London and the South East, examples being Barnes (7.9%) and Putney (9.8%). Elsewhere increases continue but at a much slower rate and include centres such as Newcastle upon Tyne (19.0%) and Hartlepool (16.9%).

Field Army for hire!

We have over 40 research professionals across the UK, who can be deployed to tackle any bespoke work you need undertaking. Recent examples include footfall counts and photography. LDC is here to service any data needs you have and can be deployed quickly and cost effectively.

We recently carried out some footfall work across the North East of England for a retailer with over 500 stores UK wide. Here's their view of LDC; "we were very impressed with the punctuality and efficiency of delivery of the data, so much so we have used LDC twice for further field work in the last four weeks. They are efficient, methodical and speedy in their processes allowing for a quick turn around. The data they provide is a key decisionmaking tool for the company. Thank you."

Call us if you have something in mind.

LDC Factoids!

• Which town/city has 54% of its total offer being pubs, clubs, restaurants, cafes and accomodation (Leisure)?
• How many jewellery shops are there in central London?
• Outside of Central London, which city/town has the next highest number of health food shops?
• Excluding London, who is the charity shop capital of Great Britain?

Answers at the end of the newsletter.

Data visualisation!

We have begun work on how we can better visualise our data other than in spreadsheets or specialist PDF reports. We are looking at ways in which we can build a group of reports around what we get asked for all the time, as well as enabling bespoke reports to be published. We are also looking into ways that you can access the data and reporting software to do it yourself if that meets your requirements. We hope to have some draft reports by August at the latest.

Town centres updated this month include...

To find out if we have just visited your town centre click here

Key industry events

Below are some of the events which we have recently been to or are going to - contributing, supporting or presenting!

• The Scotsman Retail Conference (Edinburgh - 1 June)
• British Property Federation annual conferece (London - 8 June)
• British Retail Consortium Annual Retail Conferrence (London - 10 June)
• ATCM World Congress (London 16-19 June)
• Colliers CRE Midsummer report briefing (London - 22 June)
• Data Marketing Show (London - 29/30 June)
• Virtual Retail NOW (Online - 29/30 June)

SAVE THE DATE!

• British Property Federation Retail Summit (Bank of America Merrill Lynch, London - 9 September 2010) - Publication of LDC Shop Vacancy report 2010

Our Puns of the Month for June...

Here is our latest list of creative names for businesses as we update and add new businesses to our database. Here are our Top Puns for June...

Factoid answers!

• Blackpool has 54% of its offer being Leisure uses
• Central London has 485 jewellery shops
• Nottingham has 10 health food shops whilst central London has 62!
• Brighton & Hove with 39 charity shops

We all know that supermarkets are expanding but it is amazing to think that Tesco could have 15 stores (different formats) in Norwich. I have just looked into Norwich and its immediate surroundings and we are tracking nearly 70 supermarkets. They clearly like supermarket shoping in Norwich! This looks like one of the largest supermarket concentrations for the size of town. In the UK we are tracking c.11,500 supermarkets, convenience stores and food shops.