For retailers who have managed to see their way through the last couple of years, now might be a good time to make the most of hungry shopfitters and ill-nourished commercial property agents in order to revamp their estates.

Jesus saves but God invests. On this basis, you’d probably feel inclined to say that House of Fraser is part of God’s team as it reveals that it’s about to part with £5m to remodel its Meadowhall store. And it’s part of a broader picture that sees 2010 as a year in which a select number of large retailers have been busy revamping their estates and, occasionally, opening a store or two on the basis that now is a good time to take advantage of a soft property market.

It’s common sense really. If you’ve managed to see your way through the last couple of years, then now might be a good time to make the most of hungry shopfitters and ill-nourished commercial property agents - there are deals to be done and the recession’s trickle-down effect means that every company following in the store opening/refurb slipstream of a retailer will have felt the pinch.

A quick glance at the Top Shopfitters table, just completed and due to be published at the end of this month, shows how things have been. Many of those in its upper reaches have seen sales and profits cut in half over the last 12 months and yet still there are probably rather more shopfitters than there are retail projects to work on.

For retailers with the urge to refit therefore, this means easy pickings - a bit like landlords who will throw leases with extended initial rent-free periods and free shopfits at those willing to consider opening up new stores. Everything seems to be set fair: if you happen to be a retailer that has a string of numbers attached to that line in the budget marked ‘capital expenditure’.

This might explain why John Lewis has been on a relatively aggressive (for a genteel Middle English operator) expansion plan and, on a smaller scale, why The White Company has seen fit to spend nine months on preparing its new Chelsea flagship (it opened on Friday and is a thing of considerable beauty).

Yet the curious thing is why there really isn’t more happening at the moment. There has certainly been more activity than last year, but for many of those in the game it still seems to be a case of keeping powder dry. The question to be asked is what do some retailers know that they’re not saying? Business is posited upon forward movement, rather than standing still, unless sales really aren’t a buoyant as some might have us believe.

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