November Retail Sales Fall 2.8%
Consumers spent an estimated $83.6 million in the retail industry during November 2010, according to statistics released today. This represented a decrease of 2.8% or $2.4 million less than in November 2009. All sectors experienced year-over-year declines in sales activity with the exception of apparel stores and service stations.
Residents returning to the Island from business and vacation trips declared overseas purchases of $7.9 million, or 2.6% more than in November 2009. As a result, combined local and overseas spending totalled $91.5 million during the month, a decrease of 2.4% year-over-year.
The construction industry was hard hit, with sales receipts by building material retailers having decreased 26.3% during the month compared to November 2009. Liquor sales slipped 1.5%, however apparel stores sales rebounded 2.4% above the previous year’s level after four consecutive months of declines.
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These results seem to fly in the face of what the industry is claiming…They suggest that the retailer is dead…and clearly that is not the case…simply taking a 2.8% holiday. What they (the retailers) need to focus on is re-engineering their businesses ie. how can they be sure to sustain sales levels.
Good places to start:
- better hours ie beyond 5pm on a daily basis – When do you expect people to shop?
- Having fully accessible floors ie. wheelchair and babystroller accessible
- Having comfortable and accessible washroom facilities
- Having energetic, willing and personal sales staff with customer service training
- Having better return policies
- Being more proactive and responsive to changed demographics and consumer demanded goods and methods of shopping
- enable website shopping with delivery across island
These are a few (not so innovative) ways that Hamilton retailers can help to increase sales…move with the times..
the sad truth is that no matter what they do, we’re going to jump on a plane and get what we want overseas.
A 40 inch flat panel in the US costs $325. If I check it as baggage add $150 (overweight luggage) and add 22% for duty. I’m a little over $500. Add another $300 for airfare to a east coast city. I’m still under $900. Compare that to the prices here ($1500 to $2000)
Hell, I’d rather spend the money on a cheap vacation AND pick up my own TV for the price I’d pay for it here. Buy Bermuda? WHY???????????????
Amen to that! itwasnt me – I agree with you 100% and I say SHAME, SHAME, SHAME ON YOU, RETAILERS!!! It is absolutely ridiculous that we are able pay airfare, US tax, BDA duty, extra baggage fees and still pay less for goods elsewhere than in Bermuda. If WE can get things cheaper, why can’t you? I realize overhead is expensive, but come on – you buy in bulk, you don’t have to pay 25% duty, no US tax, no airfare, no hotel stays, cabs….yet you still think it is OK to jack the prices of your goods up? Our answer to that behaviour is simple – DO NOT BUY BDA!
SHAME, SHAME, SHAME ON YOU.
I agree with 411.
The shops should definitely be open past 5pm. And the people in the stores should act like they want to help you!!!!!
I have been to a number of establishments and the customer service is terrible. For the most part I just make do with what I have in my closet, order online or just sit and wait until I got to visit family overseas.
The other thing is, there is no selection here either. I have been to Hamilton shopping and have often walked away with nothing. It’s like you have to catch the shops at the right time. Then we go back to the shops needing to be open longer!!!!!!!
Lots of groups at fault here IMO. The retailers for not keeping up with the times especially in giving customer service both on the sales floor with helpful staff & having what people want in stock. You can get better service at any Walmart. The standard Bermuda pricing formula seems to be whatever US retail price is, add 100% minimum.
The Governments which for decades have been nibbling away at retailers by increasing duty plus the expense of financing duty until the product is sold. Perhaps duty should be done away with, replaced with a point of sale VAT. that should vastly reduce the number of paper pushers at Customs too, saving Government millions in salaries.
Then there are the consumers themselves who purchase abroad just because they can. Guilty as charged. They often do it without adding up all the costs. Yes, it can be worthwhile going on a shopping trip but you had better do the math first be going for alot more than a few hundred dollars worth of stuff.
Airfares are cheaper now than they have ever been when fairly compared to average earnings. Hotels outside of cities are cheap. Rental cars are cheap. restaurants are cheap but all these things add up & are part of the overall cost of whatever is brought back.
The bottom line is more retailers will go under this year & many people will be getting pink slips. Be sure to spread the blame around.
When i see the word SALE i still by pass because the sale prices are not enticing. Like do you really want to get rid of the stuff?? Apparel? If this means clothing…that sucks too…thank goodness I still have my sewing maching. Customer service sucks mostly everywhere in Bermuda, and no-one seems to bargain. You bargain with me you can bet your boots um gonna be back to your store. If i spend over 150.00 or higher, award me with a gift card or something with 50.00 on it. Give your consumers some incentive to keep coming back and bringing u more customers, Bermuda is small…the word will get spread. Even tourist complain about the prices…smh.
Where are the retailers’ responses to these questions and comments? Where are the focus groups at the Chamber of Commerce? Where IS the Chamber of Commerce?
I’ve found retail prices have come down by comparison over the past years. For the most part store clerks’ attitudes have improved. Not all, and not in all stores, and that needs to change. But what about in your organisation? Honestly. No problems there? (If the service is bad in a store do the employer a favour, call them).
No one can compete with the likes of Wal-Mart……why do retailers in the US hate them opening up in their areas? There are other discount stores as well, with their buying power and the size of their market. In Bermuda a market of 65,000 souls is not enough to allow the economics that feed discount stores. You’ve heard of location, location, location? That’s about volume, volume, volume. (And it’s volume that does not allow for the most part opening after 5pm/6pm…..many retailers would like to but the economies of scale do not work, as many have tried and discovered). Ask why your bank sends their tellers off to lunch at lunchtime when that’s the only time you can get to the bank.
Consider store rent paid in Bermuda, especially in Hamilton, compared to the US.
Consider that in Bermuda retailers (and others) fund two pension plans, (one a percentage of payroll), around 5% payroll tax (depending on the payroll size), and medical/dental insurance. Retailers in the US pay how much by comparison? Do they even pay health insurance.(Dental insurance? You have got to be kidding)….remember that up to now over 20 million Americans have had no health insurance and I’m sure some of those 20 million are employed, some in retail.
Consider the high cost of labour. It’s all very well that we complain about the high cost of everything in stores but let’s take a look at what our own salaries would be in the US (after Federal tax, after State tax). Basically we are taking advantage of the benefits of a huge market on our doorstep, with low(er)costs.
Consider the fact that duty (our version of a sales tax) has to be paid up front before the item can come off the dock. (Someone above did mention replacing Customs Duty with a sales tax…. not a bad idea…although there are many many issues there too). Paying duty up front means that the retailer pays tax on the item even if it does not sell for one reason or another (stolen, damaged).
Consider the fact that the charge to move a shipping container from the US is around $3,000. How many bags of Huggies diapers can one get into a container where that cost has to be added? Consider also the cost of moving that container from the dock to the retailer.
Consider that the retailer knows that they have to carry as wide selection as possible and therefore needs to warehouse what is not on the sales floor. The rent for that warehousing compared to rent in the US? Consider that the travel time from the US supplier to Bermuda in about 3 weeks so for the most part so there is no such thing here as last minute delivery. There’s no getting around the need for warehousing. (One week to process the order and deliver to a US address. One week to containerize and get on a ship to Bermuda, one week, give or take, to process the cumbersome Customs paperwork, pay duty, arrange delivery to the retailer). Sure it can be FedEx’d in or airshipped in but that does something nasty to the price.
Consider what a community of 65,000 in the middle of nowhere, USA has on offer on their Main Street. Do folks have to travel out of their small town to the big mall, built between several similarly sized towns, to get a better selection at lower prices? Compared to a small town of 65,000 anywhere in the world I wager that there is a better choice here. And we are how many miles from the nearest town?
Consider now your own business, the job you do. What do you charge compared to the same type of business/work in the USA? Clerical workers. Lawyers at $900 an hour, retiring at what age? Building contractors at how-much-a-square-foot? Doctors, dentists, accountants. Civil Servants.
My guess is that the retailer is under a lot more pressure to keep their prices down than any of the service providers above who for the most part have to carry little inventory, if any.
In many cases the retailer in Bermuda is actually making less profit on an item than their opposite number in the USA even though in Bermuda the price tag is higher.
We all compare our prices in Bermuda to the US. Have any of us travelled to Europe?
Some of us have travelled to the Far East. Prices are sure cheap there. But I wonder what the accountants, the blue collar workers, the doctors, civil servants are earning there? I wonder what their health coverage and pension benefits are? But what do we care? It sure is cheap to shop.
I would wager also that the only business that has as difficult a time in Bermuda is the hotel business. Uh Oh!
But WE all know, and wonder why, none of the retailers and none of the hotel managers have any brains at all. They doddle along not listening not caring, oblivious of Economics 101, just charging whatever they feel like, without any care or worry. Why are they not as bright as we are in our businesses?
We can do better than that……I think we’d better open our own store.
Excellent observations.
The 441 is right. The only shop worthy of my money is Gibbons Company and they brag that their prices are the same as the U.S. when we all know that’s a lie. Retail sales are going to keep falling until these stores accept some personal responsibility and step their games up BIG TIME!