Following today’s news (Monday 20 January) that Beales has fallen into administration;

Emily Salter, Retail Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view on the department store’s challenges:

“Beales has fallen into administration, a casualty of the tough retail market where weak consumer confidence and declining footfall have already caused so much disruption to the midmarket department store sector.

“This is exacerbated for Beales as it is primarily located on secondary high streets where the drop in footfall is likely to be more profound as other retailers close stores in these locations.

“An important factor in Beales going to administration is the slow speed at which it has tried to adapt to the shift to online shopping, as it only launched a transactional website in its FY2017/18 with a limited product range, which was too little, too late.

“Consumers going direct to brands for electricals, and the shift away from the midmarket in clothing & footwear and homewares will also have damaged Beales’ sales, and without a compelling own label proposition this is hard to combat.”