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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Jan- 2024 -5 January
Boots Q1 driven by record-breaking Black Friday
Boots has revealed it delivered a strong performance in its first quarter of the year, ended 30 November 2023, as retail sales jumped 9.8% aided by a “record-breaking” Black Friday. The retailer, owned by Walgreens Boots Alliance, also revealed it secured its 11th consecutive quarter of market share growth, with…
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5 January
Asda and Usdaw sign collective bargaining agreement
Asda and Usdaw have signed a collective bargaining agreement that will see the union represent hourly-paid employees in the convenience stores and Leon restaurants that Asda acquired from EG Group. Following the agreement, Usdaw will negotiate on pay, hours and holidays annually for those employed in 356 convenience stores and…
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5 January
Zalando direct-to-consumer VP steps down
Carsten Keller, Zalando’s direct-to-consumer vice-president and CEO and founder of the group’s Connected Retail division, has decided to leave the company after eight years. Keller joined Zalando in 2016 to to build the brand’s marketplace ecosystem. In 2018, Keller founded Connected Retail for brick-and-mortar stores. With the launch of Connected…
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5 January
Sainsbury’s invests £200m to raise wages by 9%
Sainsbury’s will be investing £200m to increase colleague pay to £12 per hour – £13.15 in London – from March. The move is the biggest investment made by the retailer into staff pay and will benefit some 120,000 colleagues, giving them an extra £1,910 a year nationally and £2,290 a…
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4 January
Today’s news in brief-4/1/24
UK retail footfall rose by 6.1% in December driven by a festive shopping surge. Shopping centres led with an 11.1% increase, followed by retail parks (5.9%) and high streets (3.7%). Compared to 2022, footfall edged up by 0.2%, primarily in high streets (+1.2%). However, shopping centres saw a decline of…
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4 January
Food and health and beauty to perform better in 2024
Food and health and Beauty are expected to be two of the best performing retail categories for 2024, according to predictions from the KPMG/RetailNext Retail Think Tank (RTT), an independent board of retail experts. In its latest 2024 Retail Outlook report, the RTT predicts a return to volume growth in…
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4 January
Superdrug permanently halves prices of over 150 items
Superdrug has revealed that it will permanently reduce the price of over 150 everyday and essential items to make shopping for necessities more affordable. The retailer said the price reduction is its next step in supporting customers with the current cost of living crisis, having previously frozen the prices of…
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4 January
Festive shopping boosts footfall 6.1% in December
Footfall across UK retail destinations rose by +6.1% from November to December as poor weather conditions, rail disruption and the cost of living crisis failed to deter festive shoppers. According to the latest data from MRI Software, December was predominantly boosted by the fourth week of the month, the final…
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4 January
JD Sports lowers guidance after underwhelming Christmas sales
JD Sports has lowered its full year profit guidance to between £915m – £935m, down from its ambitious £1bn target after seeing lower than expected revenue growth over the festive period. The company saw a constant currency organic revenue growth of 6.0% with like-for-like growth of 1.8% for the 22…
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4 January
Topps Tiles first quarter LFL sales slip to 7.1%
Topps Tiles has reported that in the 13 weeks to 30 December, like-for-like sales were down 7.1%, continuing the trend seen in the first eight weeks, with sales to trade customers “more resilient” than those to homeowners. According to Topps Tiles, trading in the first quarter reflected the “ongoing challenges…
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