Retail News | Leasing Support| Top UK Retailers | UK & Europe

FSP RETAIL BUSINESS CONSULTANTS RETAIL NEWS INDEX

RETAILER BIRTHS & DEATHS

HOT 100

RETAIL BURN

Retail Burn This month, the most talked about retailers, according to SnapShop and the Retail Burn, include Prezzo, John Lewis, Starbucks, Debenhams, Primark, Aldi, Thorntons, TGI Friday's, ASDA, Ann Summers, Fresh & Easy, Jamie's Italian, Punky Fish, Billabong, Zara, Kookai, Greggs, French Connection , Republic and Jane Shilton.

The retailer with the highest number of positive news articles in April was Prezzo, with the news that the restaurant plans to expand in the UK. The company also reported strong profit results At the other end of the scale, Jane Shilton reported widening loses.

Retailer Births & Deaths

There were five retail administrations in April: Kookai, Rare London, Fat Cat Cafe Bar, Xtra-Vision and Textiles Direct.

Kookai is exiting the UK market via a solvent liquidation.

Twenty three retailers are new to SnapShop: Mascotte, Pierre Le Bistrot (Le Bistrot Pierre), Papa Tony's, Tiger Bills, Karl Lagerfeld, Brambles Café, Mezze Restaurants, Mount Fuji, That's Entertainment, Quigleys Café, Gino's Gelato, Lipstick Clothing, Wok & Go, Ikuze, Vince Camuto, United Nude, Havaianas, Pylones, Sandro, Chop and Wok, Tropeiro, Johnnie Cupcakes & Williams-Sonoma.

SnapShop members can be notified when retailers go into administration or new retailers

PRODUCT FOCUS

are added to SnapShop.

Hot 100 The Hot 100 in April 2013 included; Coffee house, Costa Modern vintage retailer, Cath Kidston Specialist pet retailer, Pets at Home Variety store, Tiger Pizza and Pasta restaurant, Pizza Express Greeting cards retailer, Card Factory Chicken-based restaurant, Nando's Health food and supplements store, Holland & Barrett These sustainable businesses have substantial sales, a healthy profit and have maintained good financial health.

For more information on the BIS Wealth Creation Index, please e-mail us.

RNI

The FSP Retail News Index is a 3 month moving average measure of sentiment in reported retail news stories.

The April RNI index for All Retailers went up slightly to 100, from 99 in March.

Leisure, Food & Beverage and Grocery all saw an increased in April.

Clothing & Footwear and Personal both decreased in April, the same as last month.

Household has remained the same for the last 3 months.

For the full report, click here.

FSP on average reviews over 350 unique items of retailer news. Each article is scored according to sentiment. RNI is the sum of these scores indexed against 2005 and averaged over a three month period. The RNI time series for all retailers starts from May 2002.

Product Focus

Out of Town Leasing Support According to recently published research by Trevor Wood Associates, the vacancy rate on UK retail parks rose from 9.1% to 9.9% in the second half of 2012 - the largest year-on-year increase since 2008. While the causes are obvious (failed retailers, weak consumer demand and the growth of online shopping to name but three), the solutions are less clear.

The abundance of available space has made it an occupier’s market, with some desirable and sustainable retailers attracting a wide range of offers for each planned store opening.

The challenge for most parks, therefore, is to stand out from the crowd and secure the best lettings in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

In response, FSP has developed a new cost-effective leasing support product for retail and leisure parks which provides landlords with key demographic and spending data, plus benchmarking against similar parks. Delivered as a concise 3-page report, this information enables landlords to present each park’s opportunity more effectively. Its low cost makes it affordable even for relatively small assets, many of which will have never benefited previously from catchment research.

The second stage is to tailor the information to specific target retailers, placing the park in question within the target’s store portfolio and identifying similar trading locations. This allows retailers to place the opportunity in context and reduces the possibility of an approach being dismissed out of hand because it is not on a requirements list.

Whilst this basic information is not a substitute for bespoke survey-based research, it does enable a much wider range of parks to begin to engage with retailers on similar terms to the major parks and shopping centres, and increase their chances of securing important lettings.

Retail Pulse data derived from Snap-Shop.co.uk 01494 474740 fspretail@fspretail.com If you no longer wish to receive the Retail Pulse from FSP, you can Unsubscribe