Comment: It’s snow joke for UK high street retailers

Snow, the economy and spring stock. What else can the gods throw at retailers?

As snow blankets London and much of the rest of the country, it’s hard not to feel that the terrestrial retailer’s lot is not a happy one. First comes Christmas, which was a curate’s egg job – good in parts and certainly better for some than others. Then it’s the sales when merchandise that many had already discounted heavily took a further broadside and now, in mid-to-late January, it’s snow-time.

OK, the folks on Primrose Hill were having a whing-ding time yesterday and any retailer fortunate enough to have stocks of those small plastic sledges would probably have sold out yesterday. But a quick shimmy round London’s West End revealed the flipside of this burst of what used to be considered a seasonal norm – when it comes to shopping, a lot of people seem to put the snow and a pint combo (in that order) ahead of trailing round the shops, no matter how beguiling the offer.

And of course there’s the other point – this is January, the time of year that is statistically coldest in the UK and the point at which sale clearances have been made and the new spring stock begins to pile in. So it’s the perfect (winter) storm – stock that’s broadly at odds with what the weathermen will tell you to expect and weather that is, for a change, conforming to traditional January expectations.

There is an exception to all of this however. The best online retailers will continue to make deliveries and indeed, staring out of the window at the falling flakes yesterday afternoon, a delivery man shivered as he waited to unburden himself of an order from upscale menswear website Mr Porter.

And the cold weather does mean that the temptation to wrap up in a blanket, prop yourself up on the sofa and take a break from the TV with a little therapeutic online shopping is stronger than ever. The best terrestrial retailers have long since anticipated this and have websites to deal with just this eventuality – you can shop John Lewis or PC World and leave the matter of heading out to pick up the Apple of your eye until things improve outside…or get it home delivered for that matter.

It’s probably a good thing that the snow has come in January when footfall volumes are low, but it does make the case for existing high street retailers to become compelling multi-channel operators more pressing than ever.