Maidstone Mums: The new Holy Grail December 1, 2013 RONNY Gottschlich, managing director of Lidl UK, described the discount retailer’s growing number of core shoppers as Maidstone Mums. “The Maidstone Mum is someone who probably previously would have thought, I can’t be seen in a Lidl store. Those Maidstone Mums are no longer afraid of being seen in a Lidl store,” he said. But [...]
Property to join milk on sale at grocer Morrison March 10, 2014 SUPERMARKET chain William Morrison is this week set to sweeten its drop in profits with a property sell-off that could raise £500m for investors. The grocery giant, which has already said its Christmas sales were disappointing, is forecast to report annual pre-tax profits of between £734m and £805m, down from £879m in 2013 and the [...]
City & Gild: How Tesco can make us fall back in love with its brand April 17, 2014 Tesco’s current strategy worries me enormously, especially off the back of a six per cent fall in profits. Chief executive Philip Clarke has confidently explained, “Tesco will be firmly established as a middle-market retailer, which offers low prices and good quality – all under one roof”. My translation of this is essentially, “we’re going to [...]
Supermarket shares slide as customers move to discounters December 17, 2013 More than half of us shopped at Aldi or Lidl in the last 12 weeks for the first time, according to Kantar Worldpanel data. That's seen more premium supermarkets take a hit – Sainsbury's are down by over 2.8 per cent, Tesco by nearly 1.5 per cent, and Morrison has seen a fall of 1.4 [...]
Bottom Line: Tesco results to show the rise of discounters December 1, 2013 TAKE note, Tesco. Britain’s biggest supermarket, which is expected to post a drop in like-for-like sales of around 1.5 per cent on Wednesday, has been caught napping by Lidl and its discount peers in recent months. Tesco has rolled out extra price cuts and special offers as it tries to win back the market share [...]
John Lewis pays 15pc bonus as sales beat M&S March 6, 2014 JOHN Lewis’s partners will share a reduced bonus pot equal to 15 per cent of the average staff salary as the retailer put more money aside to shore up its huge pension fund. The £202.5m bonus, which was announced to 91,000 John Lewis and Waitrose staff yesterday at stores across the country, is equivalent to [...]
Lindt benefits from UK taste for posh choc January 14, 2014 SWISS luxury chocolate maker Lindt & Sprungli enjoyed sales growth of more than eight per cent last year. The bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturer, famous for its Lindt bunnies and Lindor truffles, said increased production and its new Hello brand had boosted annual turnover to SFr2.88bn (£1.9bn). Lindt’s UK and North America businesses both grew sales in [...]
Food retailers are getting crushed this morning January 9, 2014 It's not been a great morning for the supermarkets. Food retailers Ouch!!!! pic.twitter.com/OZwHAdNE1P — Alastair McCaig (@AMcCaig_IG) January 9, 2014 Morrisons, the third biggest grocer on the FTSE 100, is leading the index lower after an shock Christmas update – like-for-like sales were down 5.6 per cent. Shares have fallen over five per [...]
Tesco’s 2013 pre-tax profit drops to £3.05bn April 16, 2014 Tesco, the world's third-largest supermarket, has announced a 6.9 per cent drop in full-year underlying profit before tax, to £3.05bn. Over the next three years, it's hoping to stake a claim as the multichannel, middle-market store. But the question is how easy that'll be in a climate of booming discounters and high-end stores, where consumers [...]
Supermarkets slump as half of UK shoppers head to discounters December 17, 2013 FOR THE first time ever, more than half of the UK shopped in either an Aldi or Lidl in the last three months, putting pressure on bigger retailers as the shift toward discount shopping continues unabated. Sales at Aldi surged by 30.7 per cent in the 12 weeks to 8 December while its smaller discount rival [...]