UK shoppers plan to spend £8.4 billion on buying Christmas gifts from independent retailers, some £2 billion more that a year ago, new research from Direct Line business insurance shows. That's 28% of their budget.
As concerns mount over supplies, UK supermarket giant Asda is following in John Lewis Partnership’s wake by chartering its own cargo ship to ensure shelves remain stocked with key festive products.
How’s this for a positive trading statement opening: “Confidence, footfall, trading recovering; rebound in occupier demand driving vacancy down towards pre-pandemic levels; valuation recovery in second half”.
UK consumers planning to shop last-minute for Christmas beware. A host of major fashion retailers have brought forward their final online order dates, according to ParcelHero.
Around 15 million people in the UK are using buy now, pay later (BNPL) credit, a rise of 23% year-on-year, a new study has shown.
Spanish fashion retail giant Inditex said Tuesday Marta Ortega, the daughter of its founder, will take over as chairwoman in April with a new CEO, as a last step of a generational handover started a decade ago.
A good week-on-week gain, but still well below pre-pandemic numbers. That was Black Friday (26 November) shopper traffic numbers across the UK. Footfall was 35% higher week-on-week, but still down 23% on two years ago.
London West End footfall in the seven shopping days from 22-28 November inched up 2% week-on-week, and rose 11% over last year's Black Friday, latest figures from the New West End Company (NWEC) showed on Monday.
Retail landlord Hammerson confirmed on Monday that it’s in talks to sell the major Silverburn shopping mall in Glasgow with a potential price of £140 million.
The UK has announced new measures to try to slow the spread of the new Omicron Covid variant and the country’s top health official said vaccines could be less effective against it.
Black Friday spending volumes exceeded those of both 2020 and the pre-pandemic shopping day in 2019, Barclaycard said as stores closed on Friday.
Major retail landlord Landsec has unveiled a new, “customer-centric approach” to accelerate its retail strategy. The Bluewater owner has a new retail structure to build "closer relationships with brand partners".
Mothercare has returned to profit after a bruising pandemic trading period and is now “close to unlocking its true potential”, the mother and baby products specialist said Thursday.
“Christmas came early” for UK retail in November. At least, that’s what some said as the latest CBI quarterly Distributive Trades Survey on Thursday showed sales were “good for the time of year”.
One way around the problems of product supply issues is to build your own logistics centres. That’s exactly what British Land is doing, planning to turn empty spaces across the UK into urban distribution sites.
