Interest Rates
This coverage explores UK interest rate movements and their impact on the retail industry, focusing on monetary policy decisions, borrowing costs, consumer spending, and retailer financing strategies. Reporting highlights how rate changes affect sales dynamics, investment planning, and operational budgets — providing insight for executives, finance leads, and business strategists navigating economic volatility.
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Aug- 2022 -17 AugustFeatures
The business pledges of the Conservative leadership finalists
Business Rates On 9 August, the Retail Jobs Alliance, a coalition of retailers including Morrisons, Greggs and Tesco, called on both Sunak and Truss to pledge to cut business rates which are charged on most non-domestic properties, such as shops, offices, pubs, warehouses, factories, and holiday rental homes or guest…
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10 AugustEconomy
Heatwave helps boost retail sales 2.3% in July
Retail sales increased 2.3% in July as the heatwave experienced across the UK helped boost demand for “hot weather essentials”, according to the latest data from the BRC and KPMG retail sales monitor. UK retail sales increased 1.6% on a like-for-like basis from July 2021, when they had increased 4.7%.…
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8 AugustEconomy
Women’s Euro and summer heatwave reduce online retail sales decline
Online retail sales growth dipped -2.3% year-on-year (YoY) in July 2022 as the Women’s Euro final and the summer heatwave helped reduce the decline, according to the latest IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index. While this is a continuation of the negative growth that has been consistent across 2022, it was…
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5 AugustEconomy
Tax cuts won’t solve economic crisis, says Next CEO
Simon Wolfson, the chief executive of fashion retailer Next, has claimed that inflationary pressures can only be tackled by increasing the supply of goods and workers as tax cuts will not solve the challenges facing the British economy, according to The Telegraph. The Telegraph reported that Wolfson also predicted that…
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4 AugustEconomy
BoE hikes rates to 1.75%, warns UK to enter recession until 2024
The Bank of England (BoE) has raised interest rates from 1.25% to 1.75%, marking the biggest rise in rates since 1995. In its latest announcement, the BOE also projected that the UK would fall into a recession in the fourth quarter of the year, which is expected to last for…
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3 AugustNews
Just Eat parent suffers €3.5bn write down on US business in H1
Just Eat Takeaway has reported a loss of €3.5bn (£2.9bn) in the first half of 2022 (H1), due to an impairment of €3bn (£2.5bn) from the acquisition of US rival Grubhub in 2021, the impact of increasing interest rates and equity volatility on technical valuation metrics. However, the company expects…
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1 AugustFeatures
Recession and retailers: a ‘cleansing effect’?
“Incomes are being squeezed, consumption is under pressure, interest rates are rising, and there’s a lot of uncertainty. These are classic ingredients for recession,” says Ian Stewart, Deloitte’s chief economist. According to Deloitte’s UK CFO Survey Q2 2022, finance leaders have assigned a 63% probability of experiencing a recession within…
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Jul- 2022 -22 JulyEconomy
Consumer confidence remains at historic low in July
UK consumer confidence remained at a historic low of -41 in July, according to GfK’s long-running Consumer Confidence Index. GfK found that two measures were up, one was down and two were the same in comparison to the 24 June announcement. The index measuring changes in personal finances over the…
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19 JulyEconomy
90% of consumers intend to cut back spending, Grant Thornton finds
New research from Grant Thornton and Retail Economics has revealed that almost 90% of UK consumers intend to cut back their spending on non-essentials over the year ahead. Of those planning to cut back, the research also showed that more than a quarter (28%) intend to do so across all…
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8 JulyNews
Cost of living crisis weighs on retail sales growth
High levels of inflation and the deepening cost of living crisis have prompted further slowing of retail sales growth, according to BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker (HSST). It found that total like-for-like (LFL) sales, combined in-store and online, increased by +8.4% in June compared to the equivalent month in 2021,…
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