It is late Monday morning at John Lewis’s flagship department store on Oxford Street. The Christmas build-up is in full swing and the huge revamped beauty hall is so crowded you could cross it walking on the shoulders of the shoppers thronging around counters selling brands such as Charlotte Tilbury, Dior, Chanel and Trinny London. Outside, the pavements look as rammed as ever in the final frenzied run-up to the big day. But while all appears reassuringly manic, many retailers are concerned.
Christmas will deliver the usual sugar rush of spending but it comes after a worryingly slow autumn. That was in large part because of the deeply unhelpful late November timing of the Budget, which threw a wet blanket on consumer confidence all the way up from early September.
