All articles by George Arnett
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InterviewFootfall: BT Active Intelligence MD on enhancing visitor stats with demographics
Next week, one of the most important stats that the retail industry will be paying attention to is footfall. Steve Wiley, managing director of BT Active Intelligence, which recently became the official footfall provider to the ONS, and talks about how its supply of data from 24 million mobile devices moves way behind logging the number of visitors.
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NewsletterIntelligence Briefing: Reasons to be cheerful
This is my last newsletter of 2025 and, as promised last week, I wanted to end my coverage for the year with a few reasons to be cheerful. 1. The economic gods have charmingly lined up with my content plan and delivered a faster-than-expected drop in inflation yesterday and, almost ...
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NewsAmazon in talks to invest $10bn in OpenAI
The worldās largest online retailer would reportedly sell the ChatGPT developer chips and computing power as part of the proposed deal
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NewsCurrys grows revenue and profit despite higher UK costs
Currysā earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) dropped slightly in the UK, attributed to higher employment costs, but was offset by strong performance in its Nordics business.
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Chart of the WeekChart of the Week: International brands opening in London in 2025
Nearly one in five new brands to open in London over the past year has been from the Asia-Pacific region
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DataRanking: Retailās biggest winners and losers in business rates revaluation
Some retailers are facing increases of hundreds of thousands of pounds in their business rates on certain properties, while Harrodsā bill is set to fall by over Ā£1m
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NewsletterIntelligence Briefing: Unhappy November; new Christmas forecast
What is it going to take to get the British consumer out of this funk? Since last week, weāve been receiving a series of gloomy November numbers (we will get the final verdict on the month once the ONS releases its retail sales volumes next Friday). Letās start with Black ...
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DataRanking: the 100 most popular retail websites on Black Friday
Thanks to data from Similarweb, Retail Week can reveal the retailers that dominated the web with the highest number of visits to their online stores over Black Friday.
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Chart of the WeekCharts: A disappointing November and Black Friday
Any hopes that consumers were saving their spending for Black Friday seem to have been unfounded, putting added pressure on the run-up to Christmas
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NewsIceland boss to be made Labour peer
Iceland chief executive Richard Walker is to be nominated for a seat in the House of Lords.
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NewsletterIntelligence Briefing: Black Friday performance; Charting Ā£9.1bn in social commerce; and more
Cyber Week is through and my colleague Megan Robinson has done a fantastic job of gathering together everything data providers have said about performance so far. The headline online spending stats come from Adobe: Black Friday - Ā£1.16bn (+4% year-over-year) Saturday November 29 - Ā£762.6m (+7.3%) Sunday November 30 - ...
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Chart of the WeekBreaking down the UKās Ā£9.1bn social commerce spend
Selling via social media apps like TikTok Shop and Instagram will drive Ā£9.1bn in revenue for non-food retailers in the UK over 2025, new research from Retail Economics and social commerce platform Unbox.
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NewsUK publicās economic gloom continues post-Budget
Over half of Britons think the financial situation of their household will get worse over the next 12 months, according to a new YouGov poll, with 48% saying that the Budget was āunfairā
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NewsBRC welcomes Labour dropping day-one protection from unfair dismissal
The government will not be moving ahead with plans to offer workers protection from the first day of a role, with the right now set to come into force after six months
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InterviewChatbots: Lush global customer care manager on using AI to manage Black Friday discourse
Speaking in May at the Zendesk showcase in London, Naomi Rankin, global customer care manager at Lush spoke with Retail Week about how itās bringing its ethos to the rollout of AI tools on its platform through its partnership with the customer support platform.
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NewsletterIntelligence Briefing: Budget reaction; Black Friday tomorrow
Rachel Reevesā present for the retail sector yesterday was a lot of complicated maths. The chancellor set out the governmentās plan for business rates next year, while later in the afternoon the Valuation Office Agency released its draft list of rateable values for next year. Quick reminder: rateable values are ...
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Chart of the WeekCharts of the Week: How business rates will change for different parts of the sector
The government confirmed major changes to business rates coming into force next year. Here is what was announced and how rateable values will change
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NewsNext closes in on Primark with surge in shopper purchase intent
The leading fashion retailer had the biggest increase in consumer purchase intent of any major brand in the retail sector over the past month, according to data from Kantar BrandDynamics
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Chart of the WeekCharts of the Week: How shoppers plan to use AI this holiday season and DIY momentum
Next week is Black Friday and, as we showed in one of our Charts of the Week last week, there are some signs that shoppers could be holding back to make some big purchases during the holiday season.
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NewsBuy It Direct CEO hits out at CMA approach to investigation
Nick Glynne, chief executive of Appliances Direct owner Buy It Direct, has said theĀ Competition and Markets Authority Ā āis wrong to name our business without giving us sufficient time to respondā to its latest investigation.