The second issue of Retail Week Interiors coincides neatly with the annual rush to the shops by those for whom Christmas is less a time of reflection and more an orgy of food and frequently unwanted presents.

The second issue of Retail Week Interiors coincides neatly with the annual rush to the shops by those for whom Christmas is less a time of reflection and more an orgy of food and frequently unwanted presents. As such, retailers are at full tilt - they’ve got the (hopefully appealing) ranges, they’ve got the staff and the stores have been visual merchandised to within an inch of their glass windows.

If it doesn’t happen now - thankfully the signs are that it will - then the die will be set for 2011 and it won’t be positive. For this reason, we look at new retail arrivals, windows, lighting and point of purchase - all of which are going to be central to success or failure over the next three or four weeks - at which point the January clearances should be done and dusted.

And a lot has happened since the first Retail Week Interiors. Forever 21, the US fashion phenomenon has made landfall in Birmingham, while further afield, Carrefour has successfully trialled a new-look hypermarket that, neither looks nor feels like a hypermarket - from the inside at least.

Add to this the fact that Euroshop is just around the corner, when most of retail design’s great and good will head to Düsseldorf in search of the next big thing to put into shops, and this adds up to a busy time for everyone in retail. Euroshop is a triennial event that involves days spent walking around massive halls filled with new stuff for store interiors and nights in the city’s Altstadt when huge quantities of the local brew, Alt, are consumed. As a snapshot of almost everything that’s available in the world for retail design professionals at the moment, this is about as good as it gets. We preview what you can expect and how to make the most of the show.

And the good news is that the next Retail Week Interiors will look at the highlights of the show and what the takeaways are for retailers.

Happy reading and Happy Christmas.

John Ryan, Stores Editor