It's no surprise that England gets a lot of rainfall each year. This normally isn't a problem, but British retailers are reporting that the weather has had a negative impact on summer sales throughout the country.

According to Bloomberg, many retailers stocked their shelves with summer items in preparation for the warmer season. However, the significant amounts of rain that fell this summer, which ended up being the wettest weather on record, resulted in consumers not buying the swim wear, outdoor furniture and other summer accessories that are normally purchased. Instead, retailers were left with an abundance of merchandise, forcing many to hold sales and offer discounts in the hopes of clearing out a majority of items to ready stores for the fall season.

"The weather has been volatile this year and last year, so rather than sitting back and saying it's tough we're trying to organize our supply chain and buying process to recognize this is the new norm," said Andrew Moore, managing director of clothing business George.

However, it's not all bad news for U.K. retailers. FXstreet reports that the Retail Price Index from National Statistics increased 0.1 percent in the month of July, even though experts anticipated it would decrease by 0.2 percent. July's percentage of 3.2 is up from June's total of 2.8 percent.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, August 17th, 2012 at 1:48 am .