All the statistical measures, such as the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and ONS monthly data, seem to show a market in decent health - and recovering quite rapidly - but if you ask most retailers, certainly those in the non-food sphere, they'll tell you that life isn't much fun at all.
Sadly, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee took the figures at face value when it decided to increase interest rates yesterday. It is a blow retailers could do without right now.
There are several factors that have boosted the figures artificially, notably the World Cup and the hot weather, both of which have been very good for the food retailers, but have not helped at all for a lot of non-food operators. Many of them have been forced into heavy discounting, which itself will have inflated the sales figures without recording the effect on margin.
Broad sales statistics do not in themselves indicate the health of the retail industry. It is crucial that the BRC and the retailers themselves get this message across before this one interest rate rise turns into a whole series of them.
There have been fewer private equity deals in retail this year than last, but that doesn't mean that the money men have gone away. They are still there in their plush Mayfair offices, running the numbers over the remaining quoted retailers as their money continues to burn a hole in the pockets.
The latest to catch their eye was Signet, which KKR and Apax have admitted they are weighing up a bid. While the company's US business has been doing well, its UK arm has been labouring for quite a while. What it does have, however, is scale and market dominance in high street jewellery, so for someone who can reinvent the business model for the 21st century, the rewards could be great.
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