Green Deal Hopefuls Show Poor Last Quarter Trading

Argos down 8.8%. Thorntons down 4.2%. Halfords down 4.8%. Mothercare down 3%.

Just yet another indication of how bad the retail sector has suffered over the last 12-18 weeks. Some have suffered so bad that they have gone into administration, like Blacks and La Senza.

The two most striking figures to come out of today's splurge of data reports are the ones to come from Tesco and Homebase, the two massive companies hoping to make an impact on the double glazing industry when the Green Deal (hopefully) comes into force in October of this year.

Homebase released figures today that showed a 2.6% drop in like-for-like sales in the 18 weeks up to Christmas from the year before. While Tesco over the same period posted a large and unexpected drop of 2.3%. This was so surprising and worrying, that Tesco shares had dropped 15% by 9am this morning! They have since recovered slightly to 13.5% at the time of writing this.

I don't know whether the Homebase drop in sales was expected, but I know from reaction on TV that people were definitely not expecting such a fall from Tesco. Both companies will have invested quite a lot of time, effort and money in setting up the double glazing parts of their business. Falls in revenue at this time, combined with a struggling retail sector will only add extra pressure. They will want to make sure that the Green Deal is actually implicated so that they can justify their investment in the double glazing market and hopefully regain some of those lost sales.