July and August has been months of higher than normal temperatures in many countries in the Northern Hemisphere, and certainly in China, the affect has been to drive people into the shopping malls and coffee shops just to benefit from the air conditioning. As a result, they have been heaving with people, which in theory will have been a good thing that should have brought increased sales with it

The theory sounds great, but in practice vast numbers of people in a mall, does not directly correlate with increased sales. The summer period is always a challenge for retailers, but this one appears to have been slower than that in the past. Consumers with enough money were able to hop on a plane and escape the heat of China for the relative cool of Europe or some parts of the USA, leaving those with less money behind, hence the poor trading performances. …

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