All Opinion articles – Page 25
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Opinion
Nick Read: ‘Why the Post Office is putting store owners on our board’
The Post Office is unique. We are the UK’s largest retail network, with 11,500 branches, and the vast majority are run on a franchise basis by independent postmasters.
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Opinion
‘How to navigate the future of shopping on social media’
As Walmart and Microsoft make moves to buy TikTok, Lena Roland, managing editor, WARC Knowledge at WARC, sets out how businesses can navigate the challenges and seize new opportunities in the world of shoppable media
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Opinion
Jacqueline Gold: ‘We’ve put more family money into Ann Summers, but now I’m facing a CVA’
The Covid-19 pandemic has been an extraordinary time for all retailers. With all our stores closed at Ann Summers, the focus shifted to online, and thanks to the heroics of our colleagues, we managed to meet a significant step up in demand while people were in lockdown. I can’t imagine why…
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Opinion
‘Walmart’s TikTok interest is $30bn worth of evidence that retail has changed forever’
If ever something deserved an exclamation mark, it was the news that retail powerhouse Walmart hopes to snap up video-sharing social media network TikTok in a deal worth as much as $30bn.
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Opinion
‘Online shops mimicking physical stores are new danger for bricks and mortar’
‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’. Whatever your view on the outcome of the strategy that saw most of the population confined to barracks, the result for physical retailers has been calamitous.
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Opinion
The Secret Retailer: ‘Financial cliff edge looms without rent standstill deal’
We have to secure an extension to the moratorium on landlords taking action against retailers that do not pay rent.
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Opinion
‘Tesco and AO can kick-start the retail jobs evolution’
Sixteen thousand people. That’s enough to fill Hampshire Cricket’s Ageas Bowl, where England have been taking on Pakistan in a test match this week.
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Opinion
‘Avocados at dawn as M&S and Waitrose prepare for clash after Ocado switchover’
In just over a week’s time, a venture that Marks & Spencer hopes will be transformational goes live – its tie-up with online grocer Ocado, bringing its food range online for the first time.
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Opinion
‘What does the government’s Plan for Jobs mean for retail?’
In more ways than one, retail has been on the front line of the Covid-19 crisis. It has been among a handful of sectors that have led efforts to keep the country running, ensuring stores and supply chains of essential goods have remained open.
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Opinion
‘UK retailers should look to China to support their Covid-19 recovery’
The Covid-19 crisis has had a global impact on consumer spending, shifting short-term purchase patterns and bringing long-term changes to the way we work, socialise and shop.
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Opinion
Aldi CEO Giles Hurley: ‘Families need grocers’ help more than ever this summer’
Before Covid-19, an estimated 3 million children in the UK were at risk of going hungry over the summer holidays. It is a particularly trying time for many parents who must stretch budgets to cover extra childcare costs and provide meals usually taken care of at school.
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Opinion
Peter Williams: ‘Covid caution means it will take years for city centres to recover’
In my lifetime we have never experienced anything like the Covid pandemic. In the last few months, we have seen seismic changes in the way that both consumers shop and we, as retailers, work.
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Opinion
‘Tesco would be reckless to rival Amazon on free deliveries’
It didn’t take long for Amazon’s free grocery delivery revelation to spark a response from one of its mainstream rivals.
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Opinion
‘After restaurants’ beanfeast, it’s time to launch Shop Out to Help Out’
Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme has been a huge success, for which the chancellor deserves credit. Retailers should find ways to replicate it.
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Opinion
‘Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group is not just unconventional – it’s unprofessional’
When a stock market announcement comes through from Frasers Group, formerly known as Sports Direct, you never know what to expect. A rant from founder Mike Ashley at landlords, the government or his rivals? A shiny new acquisition? The resignation of its auditor?
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Opinion
‘Retailers must recession-proof ahead of crunch Christmas’
Data released over the past few days has laid bare the extent of the challenge the UK economy faces over the coming months and years.
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Opinion
‘UK fashion retail’s choice – lie down and accept decline or come back fighting’
Little more than 20 years ago, Marks & Spencer made headlines when profits hit £1bn. Eighty per cent of its £6.7bn turnover came from the clothing business. Only just over a decade ago, Topshop was poised to conquer America – the opening of a flagship store in Soho in New York had queues around the block and Philip Green was feted in every fashion publication.
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Opinion
‘Could Amazon’s JC Penney swoop offer a glimpse into its UK plans?’
With Amazon in discussions to buy abandoned department stores in the US to turn into dedicated distribution centres, might the etail giant do the same in the UK – and would it work?
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Opinion
‘V-shaped recovery masks wildly divergent retail performance’
Not a day seems to have passed recently without a CVA or job losses from one retailer or another as a result of the lower footfall, lower spend and acceleration in shift online caused by the pandemic.
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Opinion
‘JD-Footasylum case shows how retail mergers have just got tougher’
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last week slapped JD Sports and its largest shareholder with a £300,000 fine for allegedly breaking an order from the watchdog over its acquisition of Footasylum.