Opening of retail stores

You asked

​I would like to request the following information:

1. I would like to know the number of retail stores that have opened, and the number of retail stores that have closed in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, from January 2019 to August 2019. I'd like the information broken down by month and by country. If possible, it would also be useful for the information to capture: the duration in which the store was open, the information broken down by county, and by the nature of the retail store – food store, department store, book store, fashion retailer etc.

2. I would like to know the number of online retail businesses that have opened from January 2019 – August 2019 that have their headquarters based in either England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I'd like this information broken down by month and by country. If possible, it would also be useful for the information to capture: the county in which the headquarters is based and the nature of the retail store – food store, fashion retailer etc.

We said

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. Unfortunately, we do not hold the exact information that you require. We produce a publication called Business Demography. It's an annual publication and the latest information available is for 2017. Data for 2018 will be published in November. The source of the publication is the Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR). This is a comprehensive list of all businesses registered for VAT and/or PAYE.

The publication shows the births (new VAT/PAYE registrations), deaths (de-registrations) and survival rates of businesses. These data are broken down by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) and by geography from country down to local authority district level.

Unfortunately, we are unable to break the data down month by month. It's also important to note that the data are at enterprise level, which is the business as a whole. The location is based on the address where the business is registered. In the case of large businesses, with multiple sites, this is the head office address. We do not produce this information for individual site/store openings and closures.

I've included a link the latest publication:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/bulletins/businessdemography/previousReleases

Here is a link to the Standard Industrial Classification codes and descriptions:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/ukstandardindustrialclassificationofeconomicactivities/uksic2007

Online retail stores are classified to:

47.91 Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet

This, unfortunately, would not give you the detail that you require. It isn't broken down further by type of retailer e.g. food store, fashion etc.

If you have any queries on the data in the publication then please do not hesitate to contact our data service team - idbrdas@ons.gov.uk. If you are interested in the annual data available and would like to discuss a possible bespoke request, they will be able to help you with this. Large requests may be chargeable. Please refer to our charging policy for all costs:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/statistics/publicationscheme/chargingrates#business-register-idbr-charging-rates