As someone who just went through this heartache, I can tell you it is not any one thing. It is all of them coming at businesses, especially independents, in wave after wave after wave. It is a perfect storm.Brexit has impacted the sector in terms of reducing the employment pool as well as reducing supply chain efficiencies. This exacerbates problems with availability so when something goes missing - an ever increasing probability - you then have to spend hours to find something that was once a phone call or click away. Each day or week you had those items at hand, you now have to re-investigate on a recurring basis. The cost of that line item skyrockets not only because it now costs more, but you have to figure in the additional hours it takes simply to find it. Erratic is putting it mildly. To that you can toss in fluctuations in pricing because suppliers are having these same problems to get their offer to you and are passing on costs. Trust me when I say if businesses were to pass on all increases to the customer accordingly, you wouldn't want to pay double for a cup of coffee. When I hear about cost-of-living increases for unions, on one hand I completely get it and on the other I just laugh as many businesses have no similar recourse. I know several local businesses looking to sell and get out. The pandemic continues to loom because landlords are now looking to get repaid for arrears. Depending on where a business is in their lease, this can come in the form of demanding a lump sum payment or amortizing out over the years left in a lease. Not only do you have to figure out how to pay for increases in labour and supplies, but now a fixed cost increases out of sync with the terms agreed. Many businesses are still not trading at pre-pandemic levels. Forecasting is impossible so day-to-day becomes the norm. Something as simple as Diet Coke has gone missing from suppliers. Unknown glitches like a factory fire only complicate things further. Problem finding Dijon mustard? That's down to problems with mustard seed crops in Canada, supposedly the largest supplier of them in the world. Energy. Not regulated as it is for the private sector. That contract is most likely on a different time scale than the lease mostly because switching suppliers became the norm. Either way, if the contract is up for renewal. smaller businesses are seeing their contracts cancelled, not renewed. Or renewed on significantly higher terms. If you try and find a new supplier, you might be required to put down a deposit of several thousand pounds. Something heretofore unheard of.So, again, a perfect storm. With no end in sight.
David Lesniak ● 1485d