Innovation Diary: British entrepreneurs aren’t lazy – but life could be getting easier for part-time small businesses September 8, 2013 NEW RESEARCH from Hiscox, the insurer, has turned some heads. Its fifth annual study into the entrepreneurial DNA has found that UK small business owners work an average of only 37.6 hours a week – down from 38.5 in 2012. Based on a relatively small sample of 3,000 business owners across six countries, the UK [...]
Should Sunday trading hours be extended in supermarkets for the Christmas period? November 22, 2012 YES Dalton Philips The seven trading days before Christmas day are the busiest days of the year for grocery shopping. This period puts a huge strain on staff across our business, but particularly those in stores, logistics, and in manufacturing. Our analysis shows that, in the seven days prior to our early closing on Christmas [...]
UK’s online retailers prepare for record breaking Cyber Monday November 21, 2012 CHRISTMAS is expected to result in the biggest day in online retailers’ history this year, with visits to shopping websites due to top 100m for the first time. Retailers have flagged Monday 3 December – dubbed “Cyber Monday” as the most intense day of Christmas shopping this year. This is down to a combination of [...]
How to eat well and cook little this festive period December 17, 2012 Head chef, Paternoster Chop House ONE OF the things I love about the festive period is the opportunity to do very little cooking at home. Yes, there is the main Christmas Day meal to be prepared and perhaps some party food for evenings with friends. But after all that, I relish being able to graze [...]
Tea expert who’s found a new blend September 23, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks to Mike Brehme, who is transforming hot drinks for the second time WHAT do you do when you’ve already transformed that most British of pastimes – drinking tea? That was the conundrum facing Mike Brehme – co-founder of Clipper Teas, whose newest venture FruitBroo has recently come onto the shelves at Sainsbury’s [...]
Battle of the hot new e-readers October 3, 2012 Kindle Paperwhite, $119 (US price) Amazon says this is the Kindle it has always wanted to build. The Paperwhite is similar to the Kindle Touch but with one important difference – it comes with a built-in light that “evenly illuminates the screen”, allowing you to read in the dark. The only problem is, if you live [...]
City A.M. Awards 2012 Winners October 17, 2012 City A.M.'s third annual awards celebrating the best and brightest of London's business, financial and investment communities. Over 500 guests from 116 different firms attended the celebration, held at the Grange Hotel in St Paul's. PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR Lord CoeLocog chairman Former Olympic middle distance runner and politician Lord Coe was a clear stand-out [...]
Discount battle knocks margins at Debenhams January 8, 2013 DEBENHAMS’ shares took a battering yesterday after the department store group’s rise in sales this Christmas came at the expense of more promotions to lure cautious shoppers through its doors. Chief executive Michael Sharp said it had been the toughest Christmas in his 40-year career and shot down comments made by Next’s chief Lord Wolfson [...]
Don’t be a misery: Festive decadence has a fine heritage December 20, 2012 EVERY December, eco-miserabilists and anti-consumerist curmudgeons attack people for indulging in Christmas-time debauchery. Fancying themselves as experts on Christian festivals, these killjoys inform the moronic masses that boozing, overeating and splashing out on pressies is not what Christmas is supposed to be about. Christmas, they declare, is meant to be a time of reflection and [...]
Never knowingly in line with the rest of the pack January 2, 2013 LAST year we waved goodbye to Comet and JJB Sports as 2012 saw the shutters pulled down on the high-street stalwarts for the last time. Those two – along with Game – didn’t even make it to the crucial Christmas sales period before calling it a day, but as January rolls round again and store managers [...]