Terry Murden: Opening a new front in fight to save high street

RETAIL figures for September were better than expected, though trading is still fragile and Robertson’s House Furnishers, which had traded in Dundee for 130 years, last week added to the roll-call of casualties.

While town-centre managers could help retailers struggling with parking restrictions and burdensome business rates, the winners on the high street tend to be those which are adapting to changes in shopping habits. One notable shift was marked in Aberdeen on Friday by House of Fraser which has opened a store with no products.

Novel, yes, but this is a direct and aggressive move into the online market with some added benefits for both company and shopper. While the new outlet was likened more to an internet café than a department store, it does mark a significant change in the role of the retail unit where goods are browsed and ordered on screen and delivered either to the shopper’s home or to the store.

For the shopper, living some distance from big stores or without home access to the internet, this could catch on and is being adopted in various forms by other retailers. John Lewis has a click-and-collect arrangement through its Waitrose supermarkets and Debenhams has announced plans to install 650 internet ordering kiosks to overcome customer disappointment when certain lines are out of stock.

It may not be shopping as we know it, and goodness knows how this will impact on demand for floorspace, but it does appear to be the future.

Osborne at fault if policy isn’t working

GEORGE Osborne yesterday called for an end to sticking-plaster solutions to the Eurozone crisis as he sees the continuing inertia as a brake on his recovery plans for the British economy.

New figures show government borrowing fell by more than expected in September, boosting the Treasury’s hopes of hitting its targets and allowing the Chancellor to claim that his cost-cutting programme is working.

But the big challenge for Osborne ahead of his Autumn Statement is that slowing growth in the economy and rising unemployment will stifle tax revenues and cancel out gains from higher VAT and National Insurance.

The crisis in Europe may be real but it is too convenient an excuse for problems in the British economy that are of our own doing and within our own gift to resolve.

Osborne must also avoid seeing the progress being made in cutting the deficit as justification for resisting calls for a stimulus package.

Success in reducing government borrowing is a Pyrrhic victory if the result is a sharp rise in unemployment and stagnation.

G4S could find ISS too much to swallow

THE shareholder revolt at G4S appears to be gathering momentum and some are drawing parallels between the security firm’s £5.2 billion acquisition of Danish firm ISS to the aborted attempt by insurance group Prudential to swallow the Asian assets of AIG.

The deal would see G4S double in size and catapulted into the top ten employers in the world with 1.2 million on the payroll.

But there are worries over the speed at which the deal is being pushed through and that the company may be taking on too much debt as well as acquiring a company in a different segment of the market.

Parvus Asset Management was the first to announce that it will vote against the deal and other investors are nervous about the proposal which includes a deeply discounted £2bn rights issue.

Chief executive Nick Buckles is on a charm offensive but he has his work cut out if the board is to avoid pulling a vote planned for 2 November.