High streets hit by World Cup

High street slows during World Cup

It seems not everyone will want the England football team to go through to the next stages of the World Cup in South Africa. Despite seeing a rise in online and multichannel sales through May and early June, high street retailers have felt the pinch, with figures from BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker for the week ending 13 June 2010 show overall, like-for-like sales increased by 3.6 percent on the same week last year.

"I do think the high street will be different as footfall will be hit during games," Play.com's head of books Caroline Mileham said before the tournament.

And the results bear this out.

Non-fashion

If it wasn't for strong results for luxury, non-fashion wouldn't have reached positive figures in June. Gifting and leisure sales were flat, while health and beauty underperformed. The total increase was 0.4 percent.

Fashion

Early summer sales prompted growth of 4.3 percent, despite a fairly poor performance from mainstream brands.

Homewares

DIY activities aided sales significantly to 6.8 percent, despite furniture and big ticket sales dropping.

Don Williams, Head of Retail at BDO LLP commented: "After two very strong weeks, there was a marked deceleration in high street spending this week with most retailers reporting slower growth. We didn’t see double–digit gains this time as excited England supporters, quite apparently, were preoccupied with supporting their favourite team."

Online sales

Online sales has shown growth of 32.3 percent, despite a slowing in the last week.

Chris Webster, vice president, retail consulting and technology at Capgemini, said: "Throughout the history of the Index, we have seen a noticeable rise in sales of certain goods whenever there is a major sports tournament on. This year’s World Cup is no exception, with online retail as a whole growing by the highest level in two years, and sectors such as clothing, alcohol and electricals rising especially rapidly."

Related articles:

World Cup 2010: TVs flying off shelves | FIFA World Cup 2010 adds £1.6 billion GDP to UK economy | Unique World Cup store opened in Manchester | Retailers show largest online growth in two years

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