The study points to continued improvement in supply chain payments for retail firms, as well as the dispersal of uncertainty from the EU referendum and economic headwinds from emerging markets. Britain’s debt-supported consumer spending, however, has led to personal debts rocketing in the past few years. The Office for Budget Responsibility expects households to spend £58bn more than they make this year. This credit binge has helped create a surge in bad debts with utility companies, according to new figures from PwC. Bad debts have risen 60pc to £640m at energy companies since 2011, far outstripping the average 6.7pc rise in electricity bills to £561 per house, and the 17pc rise in gas bills to £752 per house. Water utilities have suffered a 44pc rise in bad debts to £379m, representing 3.3pc of their overall revenues. Phone companies have benefited from a slight drop in bad debts over the same period, from £580m in 2011 to £560m last year, which PwC attributed to telecoms providers’ ability to cut off delinquent customers soon after their debts mount. There has been a surge in households pushed into installing pre-paid meters after falling behind on utility payments, a trend that has come under scrutiny from the Competition and Markets Authority over concerns that customers are being overcharged.
New data from SimilarWeb, a website ranking and insight company, has shown that the top ten general merchandise websites attract nearly two-thirds of Argos online shoppers, with Ebay topping the list at 333 million monthly visitors, Amazon with 331 million, UK with 59 million and Aliexpress and John Lewis with 16.6 million. Online retail sales have risen by 9.3% y-o-y and represent 13.4% of all Argos retail spending.