Black Friday grim for retailers but Westfield still hauling in tenants

The British Retail Consortium says sales grew only 0.6 per cent, driven by food, with caution the watchword for consumers

Westfield is attracting new tenants despite sluggish retail sales figures (Getty)

Now the dust has settled it seems Black Friday wasn’t all that after all.

The British Retail Consortium has revealed that sales grew by a tepid 0.6 per cent in November, driven not by the frenzied discounting of things destined for Christmas stockings, but by food.

Any sort of rebound looks good after the dismal October endured by the sector.

But there wasn't one among non food items, where sales fell. Shoppers turned out for Black Friday, it's true, but they proved to be savvier, and more selective, than they are sometimes given credit for.

The comments of KPMG’s head of retail Paul Martin are worthy of repeating.

“Retailers will be wondering whether the juice is worth the squeeze,” he opined.

Indeed so. But the chances are they’ll be back again next year all the same. The lesson of Black Friday is that while you’re damned if you do, you’re even more damned if you don’t.

Mr Martin also highlighted how the growing role played by online was underlined by the figures. Even with Cyber Monday falling outside the period covered by this set, it offered by far the most eye catching number, recording growth of 6.4 per cent.

What to make of the fact, then, that on the same day the numbers were released Westfield revealed that a host of brands have agreed to open new bricks and mortar stores within the £600m expansion of its White City temple to consumerism.

Chief among them is Primark, with plans for a 70,000 square foot emporium full of discount clobber. It has become what M&S once was: A flagship tenant that developments like this just have to have. Who’d have thought that a few years ago.

But Primark is a highly unusual retailer. It does an awful lot online, with more than 200,000 Twitter followers and an active marketing presence. But it doesn’t sell online. The cost of the final mile, and the fact that a third of the clothes sold that way get returned, isn’t economic when you’re flogging T-shirts at £3, jeans for as little as £7.

So it taking space in a big new development is understandable. However, it's far from alone. Other retailers signed up for space include cosmetics firms Urban Decay and Space NK, Bravissimo, the lingerie brand, Currys PC World, plus menswear labels Frencheye and Emperor.

Westfield, of course, is a destination, a standard bearer where retailers want, and arguably need, to have showrooms if, unlike Primark, they operate multi channel strategies.

It’s more traditional high streets where problems continue to fester. As one retail adviser said to me, these days if you were setting up a retailer you’d probably aim for 50 stores, mostly in places like Westfield, or Sheffield's Meadowhall, along with a website.

Existing retail CEOs, if being honest, would probably tell you that they wish they could do something like that. A third of their stores are probably going great guns and while another third are more or less ticking over. It’s the final third, probably in more “traditional” shopping locations, that cause them sleepless nights.

Lots of them are on long leases so bosses are almost bound to keep them open. But there comes a time when losses have to be cut, and written off. And all leases come to an end. That’s when there'll be carnage.