While many of their customers are still looking forward to summer getaways, retailers’ thoughts are focused on the back-end of the year.

While many of their customers are still looking forward to summer getaways, retailers’ thoughts are focused on the back-end of the year.

Fashion groups, which suffered during last year’s Indian summer, may be particularly anxious as they anticipate how their collections will do this time around. 

Nervousness might be heightened by the Met Office provisional report that, for maximum temperatures, last month was the coldest May in two decades - perhaps another unwelcome indicator of the topsy-turvy weather conditions that are making life difficult for apparel specialists.

Like its clothing peers, Bonmarché felt the heat last autumn. So this year the retailer has taken action to mitigate unpredictable weather.

Products such as ‘coatigans’ – half coat, half cardigan – will feature, along with items in various weights of material, all designed to encourage shoppers to open their purses come sun or snow.

It’s the sort of initiative that has helped Bonmarché deliver in the main following its IPO in 2013. Its shares may not be at their high of over 300p but they remain up on the 200p flotation price and the City seems confident of more to come.

Last week’s results pleased, and alongside weatherproofing its ranges as much as possible, the retailer has a variety of projects under way which look as if they should allow it to maintain momentum.

Despite mooted Homeplus sale, Tesco is still in a quagmire

Ahead of a quarterly update from Tesco next week there has been much excitement about the potential sale of the Homeplus business in South Korea.

That’s understandable – the mooted $6bn (£3.84bn) price tag is hardly insignificant as Tesco attempts to address its problems.

However welcome a sale might be, it’s akin to mending the roof of a house.

Unfortunately, the work is not being done while the sun shines but during a deluge. And the retailer’s foundation, its domestic business, seems still to be sinking into the soggy ground that is the grocery landscape.