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A quarter of retail accounts report liabilities larger than assets
Across 78,414 retail filings, online sellers file worse accounts than the shops.
Retail files 78,414 sets of accounts across 90 publishing days, spread across 36 separate classifications from grocers to art galleries. 18,118 of them, 23.1 per cent, reported liabilities larger than assets.
Key points
- Retail runs at 23.1 per cent in deficit against 17.4 per cent nationally.
- Online and mail order is the largest single category at 25,912 filings.
- It runs at 26.0 per cent, above the retail average.
Where retail files
| Classification | Accounts | In deficit |
|---|---|---|
| Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet | 25,912 | 26.0% |
| Retail sale in non-specialised stores with food, beverages or tobacco predominating | 7,631 | 18.0% |
| Other retail sale not in stores, stalls or markets | 7,195 | 21.3% |
| Other retail sale in non-specialised stores | 6,908 | 23.2% |
| Retail sale of clothing in specialised stores | 4,785 | 24.9% |
| Other retail sale of new goods in specialised stores (not commercial art galleries and opticians) | 2,607 | 21.1% |
| Retail sale of sports goods, fishing gear, camping goods, boats and bicycles | 1,910 | 24.2% |
| Other retail sale of food in specialised stores | 1,731 | 24.7% |
| Retail sale of flowers, plants, seeds, fertilizers, pet animals and pet food in specialised stores | 1,508 | 23.3% |
| Retail sale of watches and jewellery in specialised stores | 1,309 | 19.0% |
| Retail sale of carpets, rugs, wall and floor coverings in specialised stores | 1,175 | 16.3% |
| Retail sale of cosmetic and toilet articles in specialised stores | 1,113 | 25.5% |
Online is not the safer end
Selling online is often treated as the lighter, lower-risk version of retail. The filings do not show that. Mail order and internet retail runs at 26.0 per cent in deficit, above the 23.1 per cent retail average and well above the 17.4 per cent national figure.
Stock is the likely reason. An online seller carries inventory without the footfall of a shop, and inventory is bought before it is sold.
What this does and does not mean
A deficit here means the accounts reported liabilities larger than assets at the balance sheet date. It is not insolvency. Companies funded by a parent or by director loans routinely report negative net assets while paying everything they owe, which is why this reports groups rather than naming companies.
Companies House does not verify the information filed with it. Everything here is what companies reported about themselves.
What happens next
Retail is seasonal in a way most of the register is not, and the filings lag trading by the best part of a year. We will report the rate as the series lengthens enough to separate season from trend.
How this was produced. Companies House publishes the accounts registered with it as open data each working day. Cap News downloads that file, reads the tagged figures out of each filing and joins them to the company register. Nothing here is hand picked. The method sets out what is counted and what is not.