Almost 23,000 retailers reported significant financial stress in the first three months of 2017 as cost pressures continue to mount.
Further administrations have been predicted by insolvency firm Begbies Traynor, who have reported a four per cent rise in retailers under financial strain compared to the same period last year.
“There will be more casualties going through the summer,” Opus Restructuring‘s business risk advisor at Nick Hood told City AM.
“A lot of stakeholders are now thinking there‘s been a really fundamental change and I think the trigger for it is business rates.
“There is clearly a sorting-out going on in certain sectors, such as footwear and middle-market fashion.”
READ MORE: “Tens of thousands” of jobs at risk in Scottish retail sector
This follows last week‘s news that Jaeger announced its intention to enter administration, just weeks after Brantano, Jones Bootmaker and 99p Stores reported their decline into administration.
Independent retail analyst Richard Hyman expects retail failures to hit levels above those in 2008 amid the height of the financial crash, when 54 retailers fell into administration and 74,000 jobs were put at risk.
The ramifications of the business rates reforms, announced last month, have yet to be fully felt in the industry.
Mixed with increases price competition, a weaked pound since the Brexit vote, dwindling consumer spending and a rise minimum wages, analysts expect a “large number” of retailers to fail in the coming months.
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