Recession. What Recession?

You may wonder how British retailers including my shop Your Life Your Style can be celebrating a record Christmas in the midst of the worst recession since the Second World War? I don't find it surprising. I was marketing a theatre during the 90s recession and ticket sales boomed. Similarly West End theatres boasted record takings last year.

I believe the reason is most people aren't directly affected by a recession. As long as they still have a job, they may even be better off because of lower interest rates on their debts. In troubled economic times, people are wary about the future so they avoid big payments that may increase their debts or reduce their savings, such as holidays or cars, but they still want the pleasure of spending on themselves so they go shopping or treat themselves to day outings. A retail or leisure business blaming the recession for poor figures probably needs to look a little harder for other reasons.


I think we got a false impression about the effect of the recession because of Christmas 2008 when, in the immediate aftermath of the financial collapse, shops started panic discounting. A number of businesses like Woolworth and MFI went bust but these were weak businesses that would have gone anyway. The usual suspects like wrong products, weak marketing, bad location and the threat of online are much more likely to be responsible for poor performance.