Retail

Retail in UK faces a 'nightmare before Christmas': BRC

04 Nov '20

2 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

Retail faces a nightmare before Christmas as the UK government proposes to close thousands of retail premises under this new national lockdown, denying customers access to many of their favourites shops and brands, Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC) recently said responding to the announcement of a national lockdown.

“It will cause untold damage to the high street in the run up to Christmas, cost countless jobs, and permanently set back the recovery of the wider economy, with only a minimal effect on the transmission of the virus,” Dickinson said in a statement.

“A recent Sage paper reported that closing ‘non-essential’ retail would have minimal impact on the transmission of Covid. This is thanks to the hundreds of millions of pounds retailers have spent making their stores Covid-secure and safe for customers and colleagues,” he said.

“The announced closure will have a significant economic impact on the viability of thousands of shops and hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country. The previous lockdown cost ‘non-essential’ shops £1.6 billion a week in lost sales; now that we are entering the all-important Christmas shopping period, these losses are certain to be much bigger,” he added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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