CBI Has Low Sales Hopes For August

First things first: these stats come from the UK and apply to the UK, so your relief or dismay should be tailored accordingly.  Also, the CBI represents businesses of all sizes and stripes.  Now, the facts: the CBI claims sales weren’t so good in July, and August isn’t looking great, either.

The CBI (or Confederation of British Industry) found that 61 percent of people who responded to a survey saw lower sales in the first half of July 2008 than in the same period last year.  Only 25 percent of respondents said sales went up.

A report concludes, "The resulting balance of -36% was the weakest since the survey began in 1983, and confounded expectations of a gentler decline (-7%).  A similar fall in sales volumes is expected in August (-32%)."

Of course, since the CBI was wrong about July by a rather large margin, it’s not at all impossible that the organization would get things wrong about the next month, too (hopefully with a better outcome this time).  Or maybe those disappointing July stats are incorrect – the CBI survey only encompassed 153 firms, which isn’t a huge sample.

Still, this at least gives us cause to suggest that small businesses in the UK not proclaim the recession over and splurge on Aeron office chairs just yet.