We had talked about this in the past but the press is now really starting to take notice – the poor holiday sales this Christmas will force closings and bankruptices in the retail market.
“You’ll see department stores, specialty stores, discount stores, grocery stores, drugstores, major chains either multi- regionally or nationally go out,” Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a retail-industry consulting firm in New York, said today in a Bloomberg Radio interview. “There are a number that are real causes for concern.”
Sales dropped roughly 2% from last year, which is double what was expected AND is the worst drop since data collection was started in 1969. You notice there are a lot of “worst drops” in this recent recession, no?
What is eye opening out of the data is in the number of stores that actually closed in 2008: 151,000. That is a staggering amount of stores, but from what I see on a daily basis I haven’t really seen too many stores close down in my area. It is predicted that an additional 73,000 retail stores will close down in the first half of 2009.
This all will lead to retail bankruptcies, followed by retail real estate management companies going into bankruptcy… The fun is just beginning.
Related posts:
- President Obama saying the Economic Crisis is “not as bad as we think” is like saying Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomer) only had poor social skills
- Sept. US auto sales fall amid clunkers letdown
- Holiday retail outlook
- Ameribank – another retail bank – shut by Feds
- December Auto sales are miserable, and we knew this, but the surprise of the pack was Chrysler