All articles by Robert Clark

  • Robert Clark
    Opinion

    Comment: Home Retail Group needs more emphasis on click-and-collect

    December 2 2011

    Home Retail Group is far from the only high-profile retailer facing declining fortunes and Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s profile tracks the detail and analyses the numbers behind the headlines for both Argos and Homebase.

  • Robert Clark
    Opinion

    Can Somerfield acquisition reverse The Co-op's fortunes?

    November 25 2011

    The Co-operative Group greatly increased its food retailing scale by acquiring Somerfield, hot on the heels of merging with the United Co-op.

  • Robert Clark
    Opinion

    Recovery not yet complete for Sainsbury's

    November 11 2011

    Sainsbury’s recovery has been an extended affair but is yet to be completed as Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s updated profile demonstrates.

  • Robert Clark
    Opinion

    Hard times for Frozen Value

    November 4 2011

    Back in May we noted that the four leading frozen food specialists had collectively been outperforming the wider supermarket sector.

  • Robert Clark
    Opinion

    Jack Wills - Britain’s answer to Abercrombie & Fitch?

    2011-10-27T10:00:00Z

    Is Jack Wills Britain’s answer to Abercrombie & Fitch? Can it successfully challenge the latter in its home territory or, indeed, elsewhere in the world?

  • Robert Clark
    Opinion

    David Wild leads Halfords to success

    2011-10-20T07:00:00Z

    The continually evolving but highly profitable Halfords is one of the more complex, but certainly most instructive, case studies of recent British retailing.

  • Robert Clark
    Opinion

    Substantial challenge ahead for Waterstone's

    2011-10-13T07:00:00Z

    One of the most intriguing conundrums in UK retailing is Alexander Mamut’s prospects for reviving Waterstone’s, which he has entrusted to James Daunt, the highly regarded owner of a much smaller, seven-strong, London-centric competitor.

  • Robert Clark
    Opinion

    Laura Ashley’s impressive revival

    October 7 2011

    Despite a chequered history, descending from quintessential UK design icon of the 1960s and 1970s, enjoying international acceptance in the 1980s to spending much of the 1990s in deep trouble, Laura Ashley’s originally faltering but impressive 2000s revival is a textbook example of retail really being detail.

  • Clark_Robert
    Opinion

    Fat Face thrives under new management

    September 30 2011

    Little over a year ago, one wondered whether Fat Face, the lifestyle fashion retailer, had run its course.

  • Robert_Clark_small
    Opinion

    French Connection is an enigma of UK fashion retailing

    2011-09-26T09:52:00Z

    It experienced exceptional sales growth from the late 1990s on the back of the controversial FCUK advertising campaign until 2003/04, when it dramatically ran out of steam.

  • Clarks
    News

    In focus: C&J Clark and Robert Dyas

    2011-09-16T00:00:00Z

    What have C&J Clark and Robert Dyas in common? Apart from long histories, each has been led more recently by Roger Pedder.

  • Uniqlo
    News

    In focus: Uniqlo

    2011-09-09T00:00:00Z

    Uniqlo UK is the main European component of Fast Retailing, Japan’s casualwear phenomenon of the 1990s that broke its domestic market mould by sourcing from China, working closely with a handful of suppliers to wow the Japanese with low price but good quality clothing.

  • Tesco
    News

    In Focus: Tesco

    2011-08-19T00:00:00Z

    Updating Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s Tesco profile is no mean task, as befits the world’s third biggest retailer.

  • JJB
    News

    In focus: JJB

    2011-08-12T00:00:00Z

    JJB’s decline has been perhaps the most precipitous in recent UK retail history.

  • Ernest Jones
    News

    In focus: Signet

    2011-08-04T00:00:00Z

    Signet’s Bermuda registration, plus changing its primary listing to the NYSE, makes performance analysis no easier for a group whose UK operations, whichever way they are calculated, account for a declining proportion of the total.

  • Abercrombie and Fitch
    News

    In focus: Abercrombie & Fitch

    2011-07-29T00:00:00Z

    Recent Retail Week Knowledge Bank subscriber searches indicate strong interest in both Abercrombie & Fitch and sub-brand Hollister.

  • Topshop
    News

    In focus: Arcadia

    2011-07-22T00:00:00Z

    Coinciding with the ending of Kate Moss and Jamie Hince’s honeymoon on Sir Philip Green’s yacht – and with Kate Moss’s Topshop collections now history – Retail Week Knowledge Bank has been undertaking the more prosaic exercise of updating its Arcadia and Bhs profiles in the wake of the financial ...

  • Amazon
    News

    In focus: Amazon

    2011-07-15T00:00:00Z

    Amazon’s agreement to acquire The Book Depository and the UK competition authorities’ prospective interest offers the chance to revisit Amazon’s lack of reporting of details of its UK business performance.

  • French Connection
    News

    In focus: French Connection

    2011-07-08T00:00:00Z

    French Connection is restructuring and Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s profile update analyses its progress.

  • New Look
    News

    In focus: New Look

    2011-07-01T00:00:00Z

    Until 2010, New Look was one of fashion retailing’s winners, enjoying double-digit sales growth in five of the previous six years and consistently high operating margins