Small business competition is set to only get harder as UK branded prices continue to plummet. Last month prices were driven down in fierce competition and supermarket price war, and the British Retail Consortium-Nielsen Shop Index recorded a fall of 2.1% of retail prices compared with a year ago.
Excluding Black Friday and Cyber Monday, November saw non-food shop prices fell by 3.3%, with the majority of reductions one clothing, footwear, electricals, DIY, gardening and hardware.
Helen Dickinson, the director of the British Retail Consortium, said: “Shop prices fell by 2.1% last month as a result of retailers continuing to invest in price, intense competition in the run-up to Black Friday and lower commodity prices, marking a joint record low for falling prices.”
She added: “Food prices fell by 0.3% as the impact of past falls in oil, weaker demand in emerging markets and a strong pound, helped support a continued deflationary environment.”
For SMEs that can’t afford the same low prices, this news is unlikely to come as a surprise considering retail prices have fallen consecutively for a remarkable 31 months.
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