Covid-19
This coverage examines the effects of Covid-19 on the UK retail industry, focusing on operational disruption, financial pressures, consumer behaviour shifts, and recovery strategies. Reporting includes lockdown impacts, safety measures, supply chain challenges, online growth, and leadership decisions that shaped responses to the crisis. Designed for executives and managers, it offers lessons and insights for navigating future disruptions.
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Nov- 2020 -18 NovemberSport & Leisure
Halfords profits double in ‘very strong’ H1
Halfords has welcomed a “very strong” half-year of trading, with pre-tax profit soaring 116.2% to £56m in the half-year ended 2 October. The group also reported group revenue growth of 9.6%, and despite the ongoing pandemic, all its product areas and businesses returned to growth towards the end of the…
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18 NovemberComment
Planning for the new digital saltation
Digital evolution, over the last 10 years, has been a steady move from offline to online. Since the mid-noughties until very recently, we’ve seen gradual increases in online sales compared to overall retail sales. Then COVID-19 happened, and the world changed. But our desire to purchase didn’t. We still needed…
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17 NovemberEconomy
Consumer confidence falls with Covid restrictions
Consumer confidence in the UK has dropped significantly with the introduction of further pandemic restrictions, according to new data from PwC. Recent measures to combat the spread of Covid-19 have seen consumer sentiment fall from -1 in to -10 in October. This is the sharpest decline since the initial lockdown…
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16 NovemberComment
The future of retail, where one size fits none
When writing this introduction, perhaps somewhat naively, I Googled ‘what was the most challenging time in all of history for retailers?’; thinking I could find some anecdotes about a time when retailers overcame hardships greater than those we face currently. As it turns out, the most challenging time in modern…
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16 NovemberDepartment Stores
JD Sports enters race for Debenhams
JD Sports has reportedly entered the race to acquire embattled department store Debenhams, and has been granted access to Debenhams’ finances in a secure data room. According to The Telegraph, JD Sports has emerged as a potential contender after being given access to Debenhams’ finances within the last fortnight. One…
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16 NovemberHigh Street
76% of retail staff experiencing higher levels of abuse, Usdaw finds
Usdaw has announced that three quarters of retail staff have experienced high levels of abuse and said it “has been worse during the pandemic”. The retail trade union acquired the statistics from over 2,000 retail staff in its annual survey. The interim results for this year showed that 76% of…
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16 NovemberSport & Leisure
Tribunal reverses CMA’s block of JD Sports’ Footasylum takeover
The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has overturned the Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) decision to block JD Sports’ acquisition of Footasylum. In its ruling, the CAT said the CMA “acted irrationally” in its decision-making and failed to provide the essential evidence needed to block the takeover. Following this result, JD…
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13 NovemberClothing & Shoes
Burberry H1 revenues fall 31%
Burberry has revealed sales have managed to return to growth in October, after the luxury retailer said revenue for the first half of the year decreased by 31% to £878m. In the same period, operating profit plummeted 75% to £51m amid the effects of the ongoing pandemic. The fashion house…
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12 NovemberFeatures
TITLE: Q&A with Paul Boyle
Where do you see the future of the high street going? I think what we’ve seen over the course of the past few months is a fairly dramatic change to what we all expected would happen. Adapting to a Covid world was, for some retailers, probably not easy, and over…
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12 NovemberNews
B&M profit and earnings soar in H1
B&M has announced that adjusted pre-tax profit more than doubled in the half-year ended 26 September, with profit soaring 128.5% to £253.6m, up from £111m the prior year. In the same period, the business, which has remained open during national lockdowns, saw group adjusted EBITDA rocket 95.3% to £295.6m, up…
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