Shop closures may come in Hungary

Photo: Alpár Kató - Daily News Hungary ©

Small stores in shopping malls are not expecting good Christmas sales as buyers’ incomes are being squeezed by rising food and energy prices while they are not expected to get a discount on rent. Many may opt to close.

The Christmas season this year will not bring any relief for businesses selling non-essential goods: food is the first item on households’ shopping lists, followed by energy. If there is still any disposable income left, many are expected to use it to pay off debts, leaving clothes, travel and technical goods as the last items on the list, writes Mfor, which questions the implications of this.

Norbert Csordás, general manager of the Devergo group, said they were looking at opening some of their stores in shopping centers half an hour later and closing them the same amount earlier on weekdays, which could save some energy.

Employees will be in work clothes, willing to endure colder temperatures than usual, both in shops and in common areas. But they are firmly opposed to being closed on Sundays.

Energy efficiency investments have also been made in shopping centres. At Allee, a recent renovation project has seen the installation of LED lights in the communal areas, the installation of insulating film on the glass roof, energy savings in the entire air conditioning system and the installation of a 710 square metre solar park. The investment will reduce the annual energy consumption of the facility by 1.8 million kWh and carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 660 tonnes.

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There is very little chance that shopping centre operators/landlords will give a discount on the rent, and the same applies to the turnover fee, several sources have told the news portal. Landlords usually claim that the banks financing their investments do not look favourably on them.

They argue that this does not guarantee the continued income needed to cover the loan. It may be that tenants in high street shops can negotiate a one-to-one discount, but they cannot waive, for example, the running costs.