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Mountain Warehouse is considering cutting almost 2,000 jobs following a major slump in sales as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Guardian, the outdoor clothing and equipment retailer’s CEO and founder, Mark Neale, said the company was in a “battle for survival” after footfall at its stores plummeted over the past few days.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Neale said: “Our sales have completely evaporated since Thursday and Friday last week. Yesterday our sales were about 50% down on what we would expect, and following the announcements yesterday I expect they are going to be worse today and tomorrow.”
However, yesterday afternoon (17 March), the government announced a £330bn package of government backed loans and guarantees for UK businesses to help weather the financial strain caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Speaking immediately after the Chancellor unveiled his £330bn package of support, Neale said: “I said this morning that the government response needed to be immediate and on an enormous scale and on the face of it this would seem to tick both of those boxes.
“I am feeling a little more confident about the future but, as ever, the devil will be in the detail which we’re urgently trying to digest.”
It follows chancellor Rishi Sunak’s maiden Budget Speech last week, in which he announced a one-year rent holiday for all businesses of a rateable value below £51,000. However this has now been stretched to cover businesses of all sizes – “irrespective of rateable value”.
It also comes after Mountain Warehouse reported “record” Christmas trading with sales up 16.2% to £95.8m in the 13 weeks to December 2019. The group also saw online sales jump 21.6% during the period and also reported a bumper Black Friday, which was its busiest day on record with sales of over £2.5m.
Neale said at the time: “I’m delighted to be reporting record Christmas trading for the 22nd year running, despite the snap election and some economic uncertainties around Brexit. It demonstrates the success of our bricks and clicks strategy and proves the doom-mongers predicting the death of the high street are wrong.”
