The opening of first two Best Buy stores was surrounded by a lot of hype to which other major multiple players responded with announcements of their expansion plans. Tom Cole reports.

Two years after announcing its tie-up with Carphone Warehouse, US giant Best Buy is finally opening its first UK store this month.  The Blueshirts and Geek Squad have arrived at last. 

This news may initially seem of greater interest to headline writers and retail analysts, but by the end of the year there will be five ‘big box’ stores covering large areas of the country so it is well worth taking a long hard look at what will be on offer in Thurrock in May, Hedge End and Merry Hill in June, and Aintree and Croydon in the autumn. 

To general relief the majority of shoppers shrugged off the gloom, ignored the recession and shopped enthusiastically over the Christmas and holiday period.  However the year-on-year comparisons were in the main soft and the disappearance of some well-known retail brands over the past year undoubtedly helped those still standing.  January was a stark contrast.  The BRC rated it the worst start in fifteen years, with snow, higher VAT and increasingly anxiety about the coming months keeping shoppers away from stores. 

Though the Bank of England believes the economy is now 'bumping along the bottom' and the final quarter of 2009 should at last record a return to growth, for many businesses any such upturn will come too late.  The Local Data Company reports that one in ten retailers closed their doors in the first nine months of 2009. 

Tesco in the six months to the end of August delivered a very strong non-food performance with double-digit like-for-like growth in electricals; its own brand Technika is now the fifth best-selling TV brand in the UK. Chairman Terry Leahy believes ‘we are past the low point, things are getting better, people feel their financial circumstances are under control'. He sees recovery as being ‘slow and steady'.

Consumer confidence is beginning to improve once more, albeit slowly, according to the latest Nationwide Index which interviewed one thousand people in May.  Whilst the vast majority remain gloomy about the current state of the economy, 28% of those questioned believe the situation will be better in six months' time than it is today.  But don't get too excited, a similar percentage says it will get even worse. 

Good news stories in retail are hard to find at the moment, so the relative success of John Lewis made headlines last month.  Group pre-tax profits in the year to January fell by 26%, but that was a resilient performance and so 69,000 staff received a bonus of 13% (down from twenty).