Retail sector enjoys unexpected sales growth in September

One of the stories that caught my attention this week was about the improvement of retail sales in September according to Confederation of British Industry (CBI). I read the same story from three different sources, Guardian.co.uk, Reuters UK and Bloomberg.com. Despite my expectations, these three sources each delivered the story differently.

The story is about an unexpected growth in retail sector for the month of September. Retail sales rose +3% from -14% in August. Since April 2009 retail revenues have been going downwards which makes it 5 month of continues decrease. The credit crunch and its effects were said to be the main reason behind this downward movement in retail sales. However this sudden increase might be seen as a path to stabilization of the sector. Many analysts still remain suspicious because there are still obstacles consumers are facing in terms of their disposable income and buying power. A record low interest rate of 0.5% enables lower mortgage costs which can imply that consumers should start to experience more disposable income. The survey by CBI reveals that “mortgage approvals are staying close to the highest level in more than a year last month”. CBI data indicates that UK economy might be recovering but the strength of the recovery is still questionable.

Reuters UK
The story is very short and gives a reader very brief overview of the current situation in retail sector. There is no information that would give weight to the story which is very different from both Bloomberg and Guardian. All the information in the story could be said in two to three sentences. It does not give enough information to the reader. In the sentence “CBI’s distributive trades survey reported sales balance rose to +3 in September from -16 in August, matching April’s high” it expected from the reader to know what CBI stands for and what does +3 represent. This is not the case in the stories from Bloomberg and Guardian. Story is very much neutral, but gives an impression that it was written to fill out the space or that the writer was ‘one story short’. The language used is simple and clear but it is the content of the story that makes an article a good one.

Guardian and Bloomberg
These two stories are very similar in the way they deliver the news. The content of the stories is almost the same. Both stories have a positive attitude towards the topic. Bloomberg story is more narrative whereas Guardian uses a lot of quotations by the experts in the field. Both are very straight forward to the point, but Guardian uses much more numerical figures to justify what is written. Two exactly the same sentences by Andy Clarke, chairman of the CBI Distributes Trades Panel, where both used at the beginning of the each article. Bloomberg chose to mention the program by The Bank of England which is planning to “buy £175 billion of bonds with newly created money to bolster the economy” which was not mentioned in Guardian. This might be because of their certainty of what their readers are interested in and what information might be important or not to them. Bloomberg’s story is shorter, easier to read, has very straight forward information and is clearly not taking sides or being bias. It is exactly what Bloomberg’s readers need as they are in the office, online, scanning all the new information and news that might affect the market. Guardian language is more formal, easy to read and understand even though it uses quite a lot of economic terms.

The article I liked the most was from Guardian because I believe it provided me with useful and clearly written information. The article I was really disappointed with was the one from Reuters UK. It just failed to deliver the clear message and in depth information; it was very basic and unclear; compared with these other two sources Reuters is very much behind in my opinion.

Sources:

1) Christina Fincher (2009) “Retail sales show surprise gain in Sept-CBI”. Reuters.com
URL: http://uk.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=UKTRE58S1N420090929

2) Graeme Wearden (2009) “Retail sector enjoys unexpected sales growth in September” Guardian.co.uk
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/29/retail-sales-rise-september/print

3) Brian Swint (2009) “U.K. Retail Sales Index Rises to Highest Since April, CBI Says”
Bloomberg.com
URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&sid=aerl.JkzGacE