Robert Clark
OpinionComment: Home Retail Group needs more emphasis on click-and-collect
Home Retail Group is far from the only high-profile retailer facing declining fortunes and Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s profile tracks the detail and analyses the numbers behind the headlines for both Argos and Homebase.
OpinionCan Somerfield acquisition reverse The Co-op's fortunes?
The Co-operative Group greatly increased its food retailing scale by acquiring Somerfield, hot on the heels of merging with the United Co-op.
OpinionRecovery not yet complete for Sainsbury's
Sainsbury’s recovery has been an extended affair but is yet to be completed as Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s updated profile demonstrates.
OpinionHard times for Frozen Value
Back in May we noted that the four leading frozen food specialists had collectively been outperforming the wider supermarket sector.
OpinionJack Wills - Britain’s answer to Abercrombie & Fitch?
Is Jack Wills Britain’s answer to Abercrombie & Fitch? Can it successfully challenge the latter in its home territory or, indeed, elsewhere in the world?
OpinionDavid Wild leads Halfords to success
The continually evolving but highly profitable Halfords is one of the more complex, but certainly most instructive, case studies of recent British retailing.
OpinionSubstantial challenge ahead for Waterstone's
One of the most intriguing conundrums in UK retailing is Alexander Mamut’s prospects for reviving Waterstone’s, which he has entrusted to James Daunt, the highly regarded owner of a much smaller, seven-strong, London-centric competitor.
OpinionLaura Ashley’s impressive revival
Despite a chequered history, descending from quintessential UK design icon of the 1960s and 1970s, enjoying international acceptance in the 1980s to spending much of the 1990s in deep trouble, Laura Ashley’s originally faltering but impressive 2000s revival is a textbook example of retail really being detail.
OpinionFat Face thrives under new management
Little over a year ago, one wondered whether Fat Face, the lifestyle fashion retailer, had run its course.
OpinionFrench Connection is an enigma of UK fashion retailing
It experienced exceptional sales growth from the late 1990s on the back of the controversial FCUK advertising campaign until 2003/04, when it dramatically ran out of steam.
NewsIn focus: C&J Clark and Robert Dyas
What have C&J Clark and Robert Dyas in common? Apart from long histories, each has been led more recently by Roger Pedder.
NewsIn focus: Uniqlo
Uniqlo UK is the main European component of Fast Retailing, Japan’s casualwear phenomenon of the 1990s that broke its domestic market mould by sourcing from China, working closely with a handful of suppliers to wow the Japanese with low price but good quality clothing.
NewsIn Focus: Tesco
Updating Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s Tesco profile is no mean task, as befits the world’s third biggest retailer.
NewsIn focus: Signet
Signet’s Bermuda registration, plus changing its primary listing to the NYSE, makes performance analysis no easier for a group whose UK operations, whichever way they are calculated, account for a declining proportion of the total.
NewsIn focus: Abercrombie & Fitch
Recent Retail Week Knowledge Bank subscriber searches indicate strong interest in both Abercrombie & Fitch and sub-brand Hollister.
NewsIn focus: Arcadia
Coinciding with the ending of Kate Moss and Jamie Hince’s honeymoon on Sir Philip Green’s yacht – and with Kate Moss’s Topshop collections now history – Retail Week Knowledge Bank has been undertaking the more prosaic exercise of updating its Arcadia and Bhs profiles in the wake of the financial ...
NewsIn focus: Amazon
Amazon’s agreement to acquire The Book Depository and the UK competition authorities’ prospective interest offers the chance to revisit Amazon’s lack of reporting of details of its UK business performance.
NewsIn focus: French Connection
French Connection is restructuring and Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s profile update analyses its progress.
NewsIn focus: New Look
Until 2010, New Look was one of fashion retailing’s winners, enjoying double-digit sales growth in five of the previous six years and consistently high operating margins