The effect of recession on the U.K. fashion clothing retail sector Dissertation

The effect of recession on the U.K. fashion clothing retail sector - Dissertation Example Large retailers provide the bulk of the sales for the Fashion Clothing Industry. They are the multinationals like the Arcadia Group, Marks and Spencer, Tesco, New Look, Argos, Next, Primark, ASOS, The Body Shop, Robinson Webster Holdings. But there have been thousands of other small retailers, about 12,000. For all these retailers, the impact of recession was a combination of decline in the business performance sometime from the last quarter of 2008 to the 1st quarter of 2009, and a drive to do business in other countries like North America, Europe, and Asia. Then another decline took place in the first quarter of 2011 right after the Bank of England decided to stop Quantitative Easing toward the end of 2010. Money supply, lending, employment remained low 2 years after Quantitative Easing injected ?200 billion into the economy. Poor consumer spending and poor consumer confidence paralyzed business prospects within UK. ... Table of Contents Abstract Overview 4 Literature Review 5 Impact of Recession on UK GDP 5 Direct and Indirect Impact of Recession on the Textile Industry 7 Effect of Recession on the Overall Clothing Sectors in UK 9 Effect of Recession on UK Lingerie Market 12 Effect of Recession on the Buyer Behaviour 16 Contrasting Views of the Authors 17 Effect of Recession on the Consumer Spending 19 Contrasting Views 21 Effect of Recession on the Value Clothing Sector 27 UK’s Clothing and Footwear Industry 29 UK Market for Cloth Manufacturing 31 Bibliography 54 Appendix Overview Recession was defined by the Bank of England (2011, p. 20) as a financial period wherein two consecutive quarters show declines in output at constant market prices. The British Chambers of Commerce announced this in November 2008, according to the BBC News (2008). It was during the second quarter of 2008 when the UK economy went into recession. It led to decline in output of the economy as well as increase in the unemployment rate. There has been decline in the real output by 6.4 per cent. However, in the second quarter of 2010, it was apparent that GDP had grown by 1.9 percent. Not only the UK but also the developed countries throughout the world experienced reduction in the outputs (Bell & Blanchflower, 2010). The research paper aims at providing a thought upon the effects of recession on the UK clothing sector. It further tries to investigate the effect of recession on the buyer behaviour within the UK fashion clothing market. Aims of the Study / Research Objective Initially in this paper it has been intended to prove that the recession had really affected the overall UK economy and hence the affect on GDP will be demonstrated in this paper. The main objective of the study has