Stocks fall on new Covid-19 outbreak fears, as shops in England reopen – as it happened
Birmingham shoppers returned to the high street with many in the rest of England on Monday, as queues formed at “non-essential” retail names such as Zara, H&M, Sports Direct and Primark, our retail correspondent Sarah Butler writes.
But any retailer hoping for a Christmas-style frenzy would have been disappointed. New Street station was quiet and shoppers said they had no trouble finding a parking spot.
Nonetheless, Birmingham was busier than it had been for months and shoppers were prepared to queue up outside stores, all of which have to limit the number of customers under new government rules.
The restrictions meant waiting more than an hour to get into some favoured stores and there were few places to try on clothes, as changing rooms remained shut in most stores. At the Apple store there was a two-hour wait for the technical support desk.
The Bull Ring shopping centre was also quiet as its coffee shops and restaurants are still shut, while stores including its large Debenhams and Victoria’s Secret are shuttered after calling in administrators.
Eve Dunne, 16, sisters Anisa and Aliyah Scott (15 and 13) and Izzah Al, 15, said they were first in the queue for Primark after arriving in town at 4am. “We wanted to be first but there wasn’t a massive queue,” said Anisa.
“I wanted to get some joggers and some earrings. We wanted to go to Victoria’s Secret as well but I think it’s gone bust.” Dunne added that they enjoyed being able to get up when they want and do school work when it suits them. “I’ll be coming every day,” she said.
We’ve seen some paring of losses across major European stock markets.
The FTSE 100 – which started off the day down 2.1% and below the 6,000-point mark – is the worst performer among its European peers but is now only down around 1.1%.
Airlines including BA-owner IAG and EasyJet have logged the largest declines on blue chip index, each down around 5.3%.
That’s despite easyJet resuming flights this morning.
Nationwide is approaching around 200 staff with potential redundancy offers, as it tries to weather the pandemic and lower-than-expected interest rates.
The building society is hoping that around 100 of those workers end up accepting the offers.
The news, first reported by Reuters and confirmed by the Guardian, comes just months after Nationwide announced it was giving plans to enter the business banking market.
However, it is not yet clear which teams at the bank are being approached.
The building society is trying to establish whether any of the staff would choose to leave voluntarily, so that compulsory redundancies can be avoided, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.
A spokeswoman for Nationwide said:
We have made a commitment that there will be no compulsory redundancies this year.
However, as a result of the low interest rate environment and the impact of Covid, it is only right that we continually review staffing levels to ensure we run the society efficiently.
We are currently consulting on potential redundancies with a number of individuals, where possible these will be based on individual preference and we will look to re-skill and re-deploy people.
Travis Perkins, the builders’ merchant, is cutting 2,500 jobs in the UK, almost a tenth of its workforce, and closing 165 stores as it expects weaker demand for materials in the next two years in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Travis Perkins has started a consultation of its staff on the job cuts and the branch closures, which will reduce its network by 8%. The job losses will also affect non-store roles in distribution, administrative and sales, and reduce its 30,000-strong workforce by 9%.
The branch closures will mostly affect the builders’ merchant businesses, in particular the Travis Perkins chain, focusing on small branches where it is difficult to implement physical-distancing rules, or where profits will be wiped out by lower trade.
Nick Roberts, the chief executive, said:
While we have experienced improving trends more recently, we do not expect a return to pre-Covid trading conditions for some time and consequently we have had to take the very difficult decision to begin consultations on the closure of selected branches and to reduce our workforce to ensure we can protect the group as a whole. This is in no way a reflection on those employees impacted and we will do everything we can to support them during this process.
The company is the UK’s largest distributor of building materials and owns a number of chains including the DIY retailer Wickes and Toolstation, with more than 2,000 branches around the country.
Our researcher and writer Jason Rodrigues is out in London’s Oxford Street.
He says the only long queues have been outside the Nike store and Primark. More shoppers are arriving now, and the sun is really starting to beat down.
Jason Rodrigues
(@RodriguesJasonL)Oxford Street in London is now starting to fill with more shoppers, but fair to say that it’s been a slow start for retailers, many of which have been shut for weeks due to the lockdown caused by the coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/19K0SFI5jx
A report out this morning hones in on the hesitation that many would-be shoppers in England are feeling as shops re-open.
Visa found that nearly three quarters (73%) of Brits have concerns about small businesses reopening as lockdown measures ease, and three in five (61%) feel less comfortable shopping in store than before the pandemic.
It adds that only 54% of Brits will only return to physical stores if strict social distancing is in place, while one in five (18%) will not return until a vaccine is developed.
However, in a slight glimmer of hope for local businesses, four in five consumers (82%) said they plan to spend more with small businesses than they did before lockdown. And one in every two Brits said they have been shopping at a small business (either in store or online) at least once a week during lockdown.
Still, more than half of small business owners (56%) are worried they will not be able to bounce back following Covid-19, the report said.
Retailers are appealing to customers to support their local shops to help them survive the coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated high street trade, Zoe Wood writes.
“It’s really important people go back to using their high street,” said Gary Grant, the owner of toy chain The Entertainer. “We employ local people in local towns and if I want to hold on to my staff I need turnover.”
The lockdown has cost non-food retailers £1.7bn a week in lost sales, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The number of people venturing out to shop in May was just 20% of those out and about last year, according to the monthly British Retail Consortium-ShopperTrak survey. Despite the lifting of restrictions, the BRC experts predict only a modest pick-up in the coming days.
Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said that even as retailers reopened there was “still a risk that many physical shops could end up closing their doors again – only this time, permanently”.
The BRC said retailers were in dire straits, and called on the government to temporarily cut VAT to help boost demand.
Dickinson said:
A mix of low consumer confidence and limits on the number of people able to enter stores mean that many shops will continue to suffer lower footfall – and lower sales – for some time to come.
Read the original article at The Guardian