One of the things I always like to ask shopkeepers, restaurant owners and small businesses in general when I’m out and about is this;
How’s business?
What’s interesting is I always get a pretty detailed response, usually with a fairly upbeat spin. This last month it has been markedly different. What troubles me is that those answers have been decidedly negative over the last couple of weeks. January is always bad for retail, but the volume of snow, renewed concerns about the housing market, the end of QE and a rumbling crisis in euroland have conspired to make it a lot worse.
That’s why with the UK only emerging out of recession by a measly 0.1% could drop back yet into recession – double-dippers may yet be right.