'Ups and downs' for high street business owners

High street shops face "a lot of ups and downs" amid the cost of living crisis and dipping sales figures, Berkshire business owners have said.

Total national sales dropped by 5.8% in November, according to BDO's latest High Street Sales Tracker.

Chris Wiid, co-owner of Characters Cafe in Wokingham, said that, despite his customer numbers increasing, it was still a tumultuous time.

"You can't plot trends anymore," he said.

"We've picked up on customer flow but you can see that there's a lot of people that would rather get on a train and go into the major cities to be able to complete all the shopping."

Becky Ottery, who owns Eclectic Games in Reading, said she has noticed customers' spending habits have changed, with people opting for cheaper board games instead of "big ticket" items.

"People just do not have quite as much money to spend," she said.

She said she predicted most of her growth from next year would come from her games nights, and not selling stock.

"That is much more within my control," she said.

"I'm able to set their prices as opposed to being beholden to a recommended retail price or anything like that."

Mr Wiid also said businesses needed to provide more of service in order to entice people away from online shopping.

"You've got to be able to think out of the box, add special things in or different things that the rest of the people aren't doing," he said.

Figures from BDO showed national retail sales were at their lowest since January 2021.

Its tracker follows the sales of retailers with some 10,000 individual stores in high streets to give an indication of underlying trading conditions.

Prof Steve Musson, an economic geographer at the University of Reading, said financial pressures were likely behind the change in customer behaviour.

"Sometimes at Christmas you might buy things that you don't buy in the rest of the year and it's a time where you can really notice that prices have gone up over the last year," he said.

"Lots of businesses will be dependent on the run up to Christmas to make their profits for the year.

"As a consequence, anything that might affect consumer confidence or people going out wanting to shop this time of year is a huge concern for retailers."

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