We Buy Commercial are continuing to buy high street retail shops, petrol stations, religious use buildings, retail parks and office buildings throughout the Spring despite industry uncertainty.
Despite a successful vaccine rollout and the ease of lockdown rules, we still continue to see large amounts of commercial property available. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said sales were still below their pre-pandemic level and the lack of people was having a devastating impact on shops operating in places once thronged with workers. The latest health check of high street and online spending from the BRC warned that September would see more job losses, a gloomy view backed up by the latest survey of employment trends from the consultancy group Manpower.
The BRC said total sales were up year on year by almost 4%, but reported a pronounced difference between booming digital spending and bricks-and-mortar outlets, particularly those selling clothes and beauty products.
In-store sales of non-food items were almost 18% lower in the three months to August than in the same period of 2019, while online non-food sales were 42.4% higher last month than a year ago.
The latest footfall figures from Springboard showed that the number of people visiting high streets rose by 2.6% last week, while Barclaycard said a 9% increase in transactions in restaurants and bars meant its measure of consumer spending had edged above pre-pandemic levels. With this in mind, do consider your financial position after reopening your business and should you want to sell, contact us today.