As major Australian retailers absorb a continuing crunch, players also point the blame at rent fees that sap the measly margin, if any, they can make.

Clothing specialist Premier Retail is feeling the heat not only from tentative consumer sentiments and restructuring but also from the unreasonable fees that landlords of A1 business centres are charging local retailers.

The problem, says chief executive Mark McInnes, is compounded by the company's retreating sales and profit figures.

On Monday, Premier Retail revealed that its income for the past financial year dipped by 49 percent to $40.5 million, though it ascribed some of the decline to a significant one-off restructuring cost.

McInnes said the adjustment cost Premier Retail some $11 million and the company's burdens were aggravated by skyrocketing lease obligations as shopping centre owners adjusted their existing rates to inflation.

That kind of setup, McInnes insisted, will eventually kill the already struggling retail sector by forcing many store owners to close shop unless better deals are offered by landlords, especially those owning prime business centres.

"The centres are underperforming, the retailers are underperforming, and there are massive arguments going on between retailers and landlords about the types of rent they are trying to get ... but the problem is that in the kind of best centres you have to be there," the former David Jones CEO told ABC in airing the present dilemma of retailers.

To put his case into perspective, McInnes noted that one prominent shopping centre had reported a 30 percent fall on its occupants, which he warned Australians would soon witness.

And the approaching holiday season offers no comforting effect for retails players like Premier Retail and Myer, which both reported sluggish sales improvements of 1.1 percent and 3.8 percent respectively.

Premier Retail hopes the months ahead will remain steady, but McInnes admits that negative sales could actually rule the remaining months of 2011.

As for Premier stores that deal both with rent and plunging sales problems, McInnes offered two likely options.

"We are either closing them because they are loss-making or we will get a rent which takes the store to store profitability, and we will not sign a longer-term lease that outlasts that profitability," the Premier Retail CEO told ABC.