Comment
Comment features expert perspectives and thought leadership from across the UK retail industry. This section includes opinion pieces, analysis, and commentary from senior retail executives, analysts, and sector specialists on the commercial, strategic, and operational forces shaping retail. Retail Sector’s Comment coverage explores issues such as consumer behaviour shifts, technology adoption, sustainability, regulation, and leadership — providing retail professionals with authoritative insight to inform decision-making and strategic planning.
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Jun- 2018 -11 June
SEO: Tools and techniques to maximise SEO in 2018
Driving visibility and organic traffic for your website through optimised SEO is becoming increasingly difficult. However, there are tools and techniques that will have a significant impact. In response to changes throughout 2017, and with the roll out of the mobile first index (which affects how your website ranks across…
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8 June
Rebranding the high-street – the experience way
“Britain’s ‘doomed’ high street to see 100,000 shops close by 2022 unless action taken now” read one national media headline recently. Another article reported that the number of store openings on Britain’s high streets has fallen to a seven-year low, driven by the growth of online shopping and a shift…
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6 June
Enabling an augmented reality for retailers
There is no getting away from the fact that consumer expectations are higher than ever when it comes to their buying experience, be it an online sale or a physical transaction taking place within a brick and mortar shop. However, retailers have been slow to adopt and integrate new and…
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5 June
The scale of retailers’ underpreparedness
Against the backdrop of compressed margins and relentless competition from the large retailer players such as Amazon, and with more than 45,000 retailers reporting to be in financial distress, it’s no exaggeration that the retail landscape is now a battle for survival – with omnichannel at the epicentre. We recently…
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4 June
Retail and ROI: how to minimise cost and maximise value
In the current retail environment, major players all over the UK are closing stores – including House of Fraser, New Look, and Marks & Spencer. Given this state of affairs, it’s more important than ever before for retailers to maximise their marketing investment for greater return on investment (ROI). And…
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1 June
Why you should take business advice from psychologists, not economists
In 1980, economics students at Harvard walked out of a class and refused to return. They were striking to protest their belief that the standard economics they were being taught had an inherent bias which affected students, their universities, and society at large. What was this inherent bias? And were…
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May- 2018 -31 May
The real cost of ‘freeturns’ for retailers?
In today’s hyper-competitive online environment, ecommerce directors face a difficult choice when it comes to the thorny issue of online return policies. Despite being hugely appealing to consumers, free returns can have a catastrophic impact on retailers’ margins. According to industry experts Clear Returns, the cost of processing online returns…
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30 May
Retail survival tactics that work
The so-called retail apocalypse has hit both long-standing high street giants and hardworking independent retailers, although some brands are proving their resilience. Despite the fact that there were more store closures in 2017 than in any year since 2010 there is some good news amidst the gloom that could help…
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24 May
Reinforce the mobile-first consumer mindset
A Q1 Global Commerce Review, which reveals a rapid increase in the use of smartphones for retail purchases in the UK found that Q1 2018 saw a 66% increase in smartphone purchase growth rate compared to Q4 2017, highlighting the increasing speed at which shoppers are adopting mobile as their…
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23 May
Retailers Beware: TreasureHunter source code released
Recently, a cybersecurity research firm announced that another Point of Sale (POS) malware attack was released into the wild. In this instance, it was the source code for malware called TreasureHunter. While the malware itself has been around since 2014, the fact that the source code is now readily available…
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