In ten pages a UK retail industry overview considers this time period in an overview of performance, sector changes, and noteworthy trends. Fifteen sources are listed in the bibliography.
Name of Research Paper File: TS14_TEUKretal.rtf
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September the 11th and the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Centre. Whilst the US, and much of Europe went into recession the UK managed to continue with slow positive
growth. Manufacturing output was down (BBC, 2002), and therefore, the main sector given the benefit of sustaining the economy was the retail sector. Whilst consumers in other countries were fearful
of the future it appeared that those in the UK remained confident of the future, and as a result, continued spending, preventing the feared recession.
It is known that there are many indicators of consumer confidence, however, consumer spending must be seen as the ultimate indicator (BRC, 1998). The retail sector in
the UK has often behaved in a different manner to that in other countries, with some interesting figures. If we look at this sector over the last twenty years we
can start to see why it is one of the major sectors in the UK economy. The productivity can be seen in
several ways. Firstly, we can measure the annual growth in retail process and compare this to the average annual growth of retail services costs. For the rpi this is 5.2%
per annum, whereas the costs are averaging at only 4.6% per annum, leaving the costs growing at a much lower rate, increasing the apparent productivity of the sector (BRC, 2002).
To prove that these gains have taken place has been difficult. There has not be the correct measurement of the industry in
the same detail as the manufacturing industries where productivity has been easier to measure (BRC, 2002). Therefore the tests developed have been different. Here we can look to some tests