All Newsletter briefing articles
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: What now for Aldi and Lidl as CMA levels the playing field?
LADs, LADs, LADs! The big news since we last met is that the Competition and Markets Authority has made the decision to bring the discounters Aldi and Lidl under the 2010 Controlled Land Order – bringing the retailers under the same rules as the UK’s other major supermarkets. It means, ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: Retail grapples with fresh spate of cyber-attacks; Automation leading to fewer retail Christmas jobs?
Happy Monday everyone. My colleague, and your regular font of all things retail tech and digital news Megan Robinson is currently in Iceland (the country, not the frozen-food specialist), so you’ll have to put up with me for this week. October has been a bad month for retail cyber security. ...
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NewsletterIntelligence Briefing: Seasonal hiring pace slows; Budget countdown; Tracking Barbie prices
One ominous sign of retailers’ confidence around golden quarter is the relatively quiet festive hiring drive we’re seeing this year. Across the big three retailers that always press release how many employees they are looking for (Tesco, Sainsbury’s (incl. Argos) and John Lewis Partnership), the number of seasonal jobs on ...
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: Supermarket bosses prepare to go to the mat with the chancellor over warehouse ‘Amazon tax’
Just over a week out from the budget, and supermarket bosses are already spoiling for a fight with the chancellor and treasury over a proposed surtax on warehouses. No taxation on the means of distribution: With the new chancellor John Healey’s first Budget due on October 28, retailers are already ...
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NewsletterIntelligence Briefing: Fuel crisis wipes out retailer energy savings, sluggish September and Etsy?
Since the last fuel crisis in 2022, UK retailers have been using less energy. That is for a number of reasons, some of it efficiency upgrades and a little bit to do with lower revenue among the cohort. In any case, many were demonstrating the business case that more ...
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Newsletter
Fashion Briefing: Cyber attacks are trending again, Moda In Pelle tax raid, M&S ditches granny pants
Just when it started to feel like the sector was getting past the thick cloud of cyber attacks, one can’t help but feel like we’ve been transported back to the summer of 2025. Asos was the first to be hit at the start of last week. and then news emerged ...
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NewsletterGrocery Briefing: Asda sales growth recovery hits the skids, and have we hit peak Tesco?
Normal service resumes. I’m back from Australia and just in time for my favourite non-denominational definitely not a holiday. Yes, happy Worldpanel by Numerator grocery market share day! To celebrate, we’ll start by unwrapping Asda’s results first. A month after trumpeting a return to sales growth, normal service has resumed ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: Asos gets hacked; how retailers are leveraging AI; and more
The biggest story in retail tech last week was no doubt the Asos cyber attack. Some app customers received a notification that read “Dear Asos DPO and IT, we have fully compromised the Snowflake instance. Engage with us, or we will leak it.” Within minutes, confused customers turned to social ...
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Newsletter
Editor’s Choice: Everything we know about the Asos hack, Tesco tops out and the value sector’s crash
It’s been a bumper week in the world of retail, and one can’t help but feel like we’ve been transported back to the summer of 2025. It felt like the sector was finally getting past the thick cloud of cyber attacks, but that hope was short-lived as Asos became the ...
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NewsletterIntelligence Briefing: Home Bargains takes value crown; Asos hack; Tesco Tesco Tesco
One of the paradoxes of the cost-of-living crisis era is that many of the country’s leading value-variety retailers have failed to gain much traction as Britons pivoted to saving rather than spending. Adjusted for inflation, Lidl has grown its revenue by 23% between the 2021 and 2025 financial years. Total ...
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Newsletter
Fashion Briefing: Asos cyber attack, Frasers bets big on luxury, Dune seeks new owner and Ted Baker’s high street return
Good afternoon! I’m sure by now you’ve seen the news that Asos has become the latest retailer subjected to a cyber attack. The fashion retailer remained relatively quiet on Tuesday after customers received a strange push notification in the morning from hackers. Asos later confirmed that there was unauthorised activity ...
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: Could supermarket mega-mergers be back?; Tesco’s Majestic Wine ambitions; and more
Could the tectonic plates of grocery retail be shifting? For some time now there has been industry speculation that M&A could be on the cards, upending conventional wisdom that regulation made it all but impossible. However, the real possibility of food retail deals became evident this week when it ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: Another rogue AI model; How AI assistants source information; and more
Another week, another warning on AI models. This is all getting a bit worrying, isn’t it? Or should we be relieved that these tech bros know the limits of when to pull back? OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT, has decided not to release its model GPT-6.1 Astra as it “didn’t quite ...
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Newsletter
Editor’s Choice: M&S x Sephora; Aldi’s £1bn bet; How AI is reshaping retail
M&S x Sephora Beauty retail has been centre stage this week, which brought big developments in a market that has been performing well and is increasingly competitive. First of all, Marks & Spencer and Sephora unveiled a partnership through which the specialist retailer will open in 100 M&S ...
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Newsletter
Intelligence Briefing: Shein hit by EU customs charge; AI and reviews
The idea of a temporary customs charge prompted scepticism among some retailers. The charge was floated as a stopgap measure until the bloc is ready to mirror the US in fully shutting its de minimis threshold for goods imports valued under €150. Chief executive of Carrefour Alexandre Bompard, for one, ...
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Newsletter
Fashion Briefing: M&S teams up with Sephora, Shein profits half, Jade Holland Cooper profile
It’s been another busy week in the world of fashion. Perhaps the most exciting announcement came from Marks & Spencer, which revealed it had teamed up with Sephora to introduce new beauty destinations in 100 of its stores. This is an exciting partnership for many reasons. M&S has undoubtedly hit ...
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: The only way is up for Aldi; Co-op keeps positive; and more
Our deputy editor and usual custodian of the Grocery Briefing, Hugh Radojev, is away Down Under for the next couple of weeks so I’m stepping in. Bigger and better. Aldi only knows one direction and that’s up. Well, aside from its prices, in which case, it’s down. The German discounter ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: Zalando and Kingfisher show off AI powers; Battle of the Meta and Amazon agents; and more
Last week, I got the chance to visit Croatia for a tour of one of its largest shopping centres in the heart of Split. While the weather and scenery was gorgeous, there wasn’t much tech involved. Fear not, as my colleague George Arnett was also gallivanting around Europe – Berlin ...
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Newsletter
Editor’s Choice: Can Burnham revive Britain’s town centres?; Why the Co-op is betting on a stronger second half; and more
The first Labour party conference since Andy Burnham became prime minister starts this weekend. As the new government ponders its next steps, and the Budget nears, retailers will hope that their concerns are addressed. One of Burnham’s ambitions is to breathe life back into troubled town centres – something ...
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Newsletter
Intelligence Briefing: Trust in grocers keeps slipping; Lots on Next; Introducing Muse
Back in spring, as fuel prices started to spike, former chancellor Rachel Reeves requested a meeting with supermarket bosses about the cost of living. In Scotland, SNP leader John Swinney said a government led by his party would introduce price caps on essential goods. Supermarket bosses were irked at ...