All Newsletter briefing articles
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Newsletter
Intelligence Briefing: Prices increasing, consumers happy, but already buying soup
Inflation is continuing to move further away from the Bank of Englandâs 2% target, with the consumer prices index in August showing prices up by 3.1% on the year before. That is the highest read we have seen since December 2024, with the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee announcing ...
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: Waitrose keeping John Lewis afloat; Asda back in growth as back-to-school falls flat
A tale of two retailers: John Lewis Partnership results were out late last week and it made for tough reading, for the department store side of the business anyway. However, on the grocery side of things, Waitrose was one of the rare bright sides for the retail giant. Sales at ...
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Newsletter
Intelligence Briefing: Donât call it sustainability; Retail sales drop; High street strategy incoming
This year could mark an odd milestone: The first year in the 2020s that energy costs overtook sustainability as a key issue coming up for retail executives. In 2021, the year of the Glasgow COP summit, 76% of earnings calls by listed British retailers included words or phrases linked ...
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News
Grocery Briefing: A choose-your-own grocery M&A adventure, Tesco leads NEETs jobs pledge, and exclusive AI data
Better together? Summer may now be over, but the rumour mill around the potential for a supermarket mega-merger hasnât cooled down with the temperature. As this column has written about quite extensively over the last few weeks, the main name that keeps cropping up repeatedly in conversations on this topic ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: AI priorities for N Brown and John Lewis; How advanced are robots in the UK?; and more
âAI is not just a flash in the pan. Itâs not another metaverse â itâs here to stay and change how we work and live.â This is what N Brown Group tech director Chris Williamson said to me in our recent interview. It made me chuckle, as I remember the ...
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Newsletter
Intelligence Briefing: Retail and the bond market; Adtech crackdown; Watching wheat
The big economic story of the week is the bond market sell-off. What the retail sector should currently be watching out for is the government reaction, given that the direct impact of gilt yields rising is that Andy Burnhamâs administration will have to pay even more for its borrowing. ...
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: Asda hits âmajor milestoneâ, but inflation fears loom
Good afternoon, itâs George MacDonald here this week, since Hugh is off today. I hope you had a successful bank holiday weekendâs trading â from now on, the golden quarter will increasingly be front of mind as grocers aim to win share of the seasonal table. Growth âmilestoneâ ...
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Newsletter
Intelligence Briefing: Let it Shein; retail sales drop; and more
By this time next week, Shein will finally be a public company after years of speculation and previous attempts to list in New York and London. The press coverage has largely been defined by the massive drop in the companyâs market price since that bonanza $100bn valuation it received during ...
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: Poundland back on the block and lessons from the heatwave summer
Value in the market: Value specialist Poundland has been back dominating the headlines this week, amidst rumours that owner Gordon Brothers is sounding out a potential sale of the business. Given that Gordon Bros only purchased the retailer for ÂŁ1 last year, it would represent a quick turnaround sale. Managing ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: How AI is being used across human resources, and which AI companies rank high for trust?
I really enjoy writing about AI and the impact it is having on the retail industry and consumers. Itâs now a part of everyday life; itâs constantly in the headlines (for both good and bad reasons), and itâs always evolving. This time I wanted to highlight the use of AI ...
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Newsletter
Intelligence Briefing: Inflation warnings finally come true (sort of); pop-up report; and more
After months and months of warnings, inflation (CPI) finally did what everyone was expecting it to and rose (a bit) to 2.9% in July. That is up from the 2.6% we saw in June and largely in line with analyst expectations. The reason why a rise seemed like a dead ...
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NewsletterGrocery Briefing: A bounce back from the Co-op; Aldi boss stirs the pricing pot; and more
Co-op comeback: Some good news this morning for the Co-operative Group, with the latest Worldpanel grocery market share data delivering a second straight month of plus-5% sales growth. Over the 12 weeks to August 9, the Co-op grew by 5.1% and now holds a 5.5% market share â its highest ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: Facial recognition controversy ramps up; eBay makes strides in live shopping; and more
Live facial recognition cameras are set to be used on Londonâs Oxford Street in the near future, making it one of the first areas in the UK to have the tech as permanent infrastructure. A Guardian article said cameras could be attached to structures such as lamp posts rather than ...
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Newsletter
Intelligence Briefing: Defining a misleading discount; Is Lefties cheaper than Primark?
As part of his âeveryday fixesâ announced this week, Andy Burnham revealed that the government would be cracking down on misleading discounts, with a consultation launched to look at whether fake âwasâ prices, invented discounts, and misleading recommended retail prices (RRPs) should be added to the list of banned practices ...
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Newsletter
Fashion Briefing: John Lewisâ Peter Ruis steps down, Lefties prices, F&F gets a new website and Harvey Nichols fights on
Another week and another high-profile exit. The big announcement this week came from John Lewis and the news that Peter Ruis would be stepping down as managing director after less than three years. He returned to the partnership in 2024, after a decade-long absence, with a brief to revive the ...
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: Aldi and Lidl are limited assortment no more and is anyone left at the Co-op?
Size matters: As of the end of last week, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) now, provisionally at least, considers Aldi and Lidl to be âlarge grocery retailersâ and thus subject to the same land agreements as their supermarket competitors. Since the watchdogâs 2010 Groceries Market Investigation, Tesco, Sainsburyâs, Asda, ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: Amazon hits major milestone; Zalandoâs investment in AI pays off; and more
AI continues to dominate tech news as each day thereâs a story about an AI start-up considering a float, hackings due to AI âgoing rogueâ, or new rules imposed on how the public receives AI-generated content. One that caught my eye this week was about Amazonâs stock market value exceeding ...
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NewsletterIntelligence Briefing: Late-night shopping, warehouses, and Nextâs earnings streak continues
I just spent four days in Istanbul, staying just off the main shopping boulevard Istiklal Street. While the cityâs Ottoman-era retail destinations, the Spice and Grand Bazaars, are definitely essential visits, something really stands out about modern shopping culture in the city. If you step onto Istiklal at 10pm, youâll ...
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Newsletter
Grocery Briefing: Sainsburyâs parts ways with Argos, no such thing as peak Greggs
Another week, and another big story in the world of grocery. Namely, the announcement that Sainsburyâs has parted ways with general merchandise business Argos to a new company, Swift Partners, formed from a dream team of retail heavy hitters for ÂŁ120m. Many of the headlines were dominated by the massive ...
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Newsletter
Tech & Digital Briefing: A safer and more transparent AI; Argos sold for pennies; and more
On Sunday, the EUâs new rules on the transparency of AI systems came into effect. In simple terms, as put by the European Commission, the new rules will âhelp people recognise when they are interacting with AI or are exposed to AI-generated contentâ so they can protect themselves from âmisinformation ...