Double whammy of flood damage and changes in consumer buying patterns add to retailers’ woes, reports Fiona MacGregor
PERSISTENT wet weather in 2012 had a major impact on consumer spending patterns, analysis of industry reports has revealed.
It is not just those retailers mopping up the mess left by recent floods who are dealing with the aftermath of last year being the UK’s second wettest year in over a century, it has emerged.
Stores are now counting the cost of major changes in buying patterns after consumers chose woolly jumpers over summer dresses and warming soups over barbecue treats, sending sales patterns and stock control into disarray.
Marks & Spencer, the UK’s biggest clothing retailer, reported that over the spring and summer sales of raincoats rose 28 per cent from the year before, macs by 35 per cent and fashion knitwear by 84 per cent.
Sales of dresses, however, fell by 14 per cent and women’s linen clothes, normally a summer favourite, dropped by 28 per cent.
“It was bad for clothing,” says Patrick O’Brien, retail specialist at consultancy Verdict Research. “The weather really upset the seasonal pattern of sales.
“What people wanted to buy wasn’t in harmony with what was available in the shops.”
Food sales and gardening activities were also affected by the disappointing weather conditions.
Overall, food prices rose as the wet weather had a massive impact on farms across the UK, with wheat yields at their lowest level since the 1980s, and potato crops down by about one million tonnes to 4.5 million, according to Phil Bicknell, chief economist at the National Farmers Union.
Lower food production at home meant an increase in imports from abroad, but with other parts of the world suffering crop shortages because of drought there was no escape from higher food costs.
And the inclement conditions also saw a change in the types of foods consumers chose last year.
Marks & Spencer saw a 30 per cent rise in sales of warming soups over springtime, while B&Q, which would normally expect to be busy over the summer with customers seeking out barbecue supplies and outdoor furniture, saw sales fall 6 per cent while shopper numbers were down 20 per cent.
“Gardening was a complete washout,” said O’Brien.
He suggested that customers may simply have delayed making longer terms purchases such as tools and sheds, and that sales of those will increase if there is better weather this year.
But analysts said lost sales of plants and composts last year are unlikely to be made up over 2013.
Overall sales of gardening-related products were down 9.6 per cent for the year, Verdict reported.
The rainy days did bring good news for some sectors. The wet weather created a thriving ground for crawling garden pests and weeds, and manufacturers of slug pellets and weed-killers had a sales boost as demand for their products rose.
Householders also increased spending on certain electric goods as they sought to cope with unseasonably cold and damp conditions in 2012.
Retailers Dixons – owner of Curry’s and PC World – reported a doubling in sales of tumble driers last April while demand for electric heaters rose tenfold from a year before.
But with more people focussing their attention on staying warm and comfortable at home restaurants and pubs saw another disappointing year, according to reports from the British Hospitality Association.
The organisation said many consumers were choosing to dine at in their own properties, rather than venture out into the miserable conditions to reach bars or eateries.
The inclination to stay at home because of bad weather, was generally bad news for the nation’s high streets, according to analysts, and further encouraged the long-term trend for shoppers to purchase goods on-line or in up-market shopping malls which protect them from the elements.
However, sudden downpours are being credited with a boost in coffee shop sales as consumers sought out shelter from the stormy summer and took comfort from warming lattes.
Costa Coffee reported that the wet summer had helped drive up first-half profit up 11 per cent.
But while people in the UK were happy to stay at home in the evenings, many grabbed opportunities to escape to warmer climes when it came to holiday times.
With June 2012 the wettest on record, the number of people taking holidays at home decreased. Golf resorts also suffered because of the wet summer, the BBC reported.
And it would appear the public can expect some of the effects of 2012’s soggy conditions to continue into this year, after transport infrastructure and utility firms revealed multi-million spending plans to tackle flood damage and increase defences against future damage.
The gas and electricity networks intend to spend £110m by 2015 on improving their flood defences, according the industry body Energy Networks Association.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Network Rail said it would be demanding more money for inspection and maintenance, as well as for investment in more weather-resilient infrastructure when it releases its five-year spending plan next week.
Despite the problems caused by the wet weather last year, some retailers came up with some innovative solutions to help meet customer demand.
In one of the more costly of such operations, the supermarket giant Tesco drafted in a Hercules freight aircraft to airlift food supplies to its store in Shetland after islanders were cut off when ferry services to the islands were cancelled for several days in the week before Christmas.
Smaller businesses are still counting the cost of flooding at that time, which particularly hit communities in the North-east.