News
The latest news, updates and analysis on the the UK retail industry. Covering every segment of the market, Retail Sector’s business journalists keep you in the picture.
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Aug- 2018 -17 August
House of Fraser cancels all online orders
Struggling retailer House of Fraser has cancelled all online orders and will refund customers who have not received their products. This comes only days after the retailer announced on Twitter that “orders would be delivered as soon as possible”. In the tweet, the company added that due to recent changes…
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17 August
Marks and Spencer replaces switchboard staff with AI
Marks and Spencer will be replacing its call centre employees with AI technology, cloud communications platform Twilio has announced. The technology will be delivered by Twilio across 640 M&S stores and 13 UK-based contact centre hubs. The project to migrate the retail chain’s switchboard operation took less than six months…
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16 August
Philip Day eyeing House of Fraser stores
Philip Day, the owner of Edinburgh Woollen Mill is reportedly in talks with landlord groups regarding a takeover of several House of Fraser stores. Day is talking to 10 to 15 landlords with a view to running them as Days Department Stores according to Drapers. Rents and leases on House of…
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16 August
Online sales and discounts help to boost retail sales
UK retail sales outperformed predictions with an increase of 0.7% in July, recent statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show. This signified a recovery from the previous month, which saw a 0.5% decrease in the quantity of items purchased. When compared with the same month last year, the…
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16 August
Brits wear clothes once for ‘hashtag moment’ before returning items
Almost one in 10 Brits have bought clothes online to wear once with the aim of posting a photo to social media and then returning their purchases. This figure rises to almost one in five among 35-44 year olds (17%), the biggest percentage of any age group. According to Barclaycard…
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16 August
B&Q owner Kingfisher records Q2 revenue boost thanks to warm weather
Kingfisher, the owner of B&Q and Screwfix, has posted a 1.6% increase in revenue during the three months ending 31 July. The increase was driven by a 3.6% increase in revenue at B&Q’s UK and RoI stores which Kingfisher said benefitted from sales in “weather-related categories”. Screwfix reported a…
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15 August
Fat Face sales jump up 7.4%
Clothing retailer Fat Face has announced it has seen an overall sales rise of 7.4% to £238.4m in the 52 weeks to 2 June. Like-for-like growth also rose 4.9% across the same period, despite the company’s CEO Anthony Thompson warning in the company’s last financial update that the UK retail…
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15 August
Amazon Prime one-day delivery ad banned by ASA
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has now banned Amazon from advertising one-day delivery on it’s Prime service after it was found to be “misleading”. Earlier this week the ASA had asked the online retail giant to “clarify” its its ‘one-day’ delivery claims for Prime customers after the regulatory body received…
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15 August
Superdrug launches in-store Botox and filler service
High street health and beauty store Superdrug has launched an in-store Botox and fillers service at its flagship on the Strand in London. It is the first high street store to offer such a service and the scheme launched in conjunction with its Skin Renew Service. The service was established…
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15 August
Former Co-op director claims she was fired over equal pay claim
The former HR director of the Co-op, Sam Walker, has claimed she was fired from the company after raising an equal pay claim three times with then CEO Richard Pennycook. According to a report by The Guardian Walker has warned that the retailer could be paying its male and female…
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