More money in your pocket: Tumbling oil prices, £1 a litre petrol, supermarket price wars and mortgage provider competition January 12, 2015 Britons should be able to loosen their purse strings further this year, with tumbling oil prices, a supermarket price war and intense competition between mortgage providers forcing down the average cost of living. Supermarket chains Morrisons and Sainsbury’s – which together operate over 600 petrol stations – will both cut the price of unleaded petrol [...]
Halloween heatwave gives retailers a scary outlook November 10, 2014 Retailers suffered another month of lacklustre sales in October as the mild weather and supermarket price wars continued to weigh on the sector, despite a slight bounce back on the previous month. Like-for-like retail sales were flat in October, an improvement on the 2.1 per cent reported in September but a slowdown on the same [...]
BHS hires 250 new staff in food retail push amid withheld credit insurance rumours April 27, 2015 BHS announced its intention to take on 250 staff yesterday, and denied rumours its suppliers were seeing their credit insurance withheld. The struggling department store is hiring the extra staff as it seeks to expand into food retail following a successful trial in its Romford, Staines and Warrington stores. BHS has signed a contract with [...]
EU holiday pay ruling: Vince Cable vows to tackle “timebomb” set to ruin small businesses November 4, 2014 Business secretary Vince Cable has set up a task force to calculate the impact of an EU ruling which will force some employers to pay staff more money in holiday entitlement. The change, which has been described by the Institute of Directors (IoD) as a “timebomb”, will also mean some workers are entitled to claim [...]
Next share price drops on back of profit warning as warm weather hits sales October 29, 2014 High street retailer Next has warned that profits will be lower than expected for the full year as a result of warm weather, pushing its share price down this morning. Sales for the third quarter were up 5.4 per cent, almost half the 10 per cent originally expected, saying weather this autumn had been "unseasonably [...]
UK house price boom bolsters web shopping October 26, 2014 HOUSE price gains helped fuel consumer spending over the past year with new research suggesting a substantial rise in internet searches for home and garden products. Total search volumes for home and garden products grew by 15 per cent in the third quarter of 2014 compared with the same quarter in 2013, figures released today [...]
Cyber Monday UK 2014: A great day for online shoppers – and for internet crime November 30, 2014 Today is Cyber Monday, the busiest online shopping day in the retail calendar, as consumers continue to cash in on Black Friday discounts and get their Christmas orders in. With consumers expecting fast turnarounds of online purchases, retailers will no doubt be concerned about supply chains and channels to market – one wrong move could [...]
Fashion rocked as warm weather cools footfall on the high street October 19, 2014 Footfall across UK high streets and shopping centres fell in September as the balmy weather put shoppers off stocking up on autumn/winter clothing, despite a pick-up in activity on the previous month. Visitor numbers dropped by 0.9 per cent in the year to September but improved slightly on the 1.1 per cent decline reported in [...]
Food costs help to power 16th month of retail price deflation September 2, 2014 Shop prices fell again during the year to August with the lowest food inflation on record, according to an industry body this morning. Figures released by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Nielsen today show that shop prices overall fell by 1.6 per cent – the 16th month of deflation on record. Although the pace [...]
UK footfall takes a hit in August despite rebound in retail sales September 14, 2014 FEWER shoppers visited shopping centres and high streets in August, even as retail spending rebounded, new figures show. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Springboard revealed this morning that footfall dropped by 1.1 per cent in August compared with the same time last year. This was greater than the 0.6 per cent fall in July [...]