New Look defies warm weather as profits soar November 11, 2014 New Look has defied the warm weather that has dampened other retailers' sales, with the fast fashion business reporting profits up a whopping 89.1 per cent for the first half of the year. Profits before tax stood at £26.1m for the six months to September 27 – up on £13.8m the same period last [...]
Halloween heatwave gives retailers a scary outlook November 10, 2014 Retailers suffered another month of lacklustre sales in October as the mild weather and supermarket price wars continued to weigh on the sector, despite a slight bounce back on the previous month. Like-for-like retail sales were flat in October, an improvement on the 2.1 per cent reported in September but a slowdown on the same [...]
Soaring Tesco helps FTSE but Serco plummets – London Report November 10, 2014 BRITAIN’S top share index yesterday advanced to a five-week high as investors bought into the consumer staples and retail sectors, with ailing supermarket group Tesco leading the gainers. The stand-out mover of the day, however, was mid-cap services outsourcer Serco, whose shares fell 32.2 per cent to 215p after saying it planned a rights issue [...]
London’s billboards are about to get much more high tech with Clear Channel’s “London Wrap” November 10, 2014 London commuters will soon start noticing a change to the billboard adverts greeting them on their journey into the city. The huge posters at stations and at key commuter points across the capital are about to get a major makeover to bring them into the digital age. Usually plastered with an old-school poster ad made of [...]
New Sainsbury’s boss Mike Coupe is on the right road by clamping down on this spending – Bottom Line November 10, 2014 It takes one to know one – and thus I can confidently declare that ex-Sainsbury’s boss Justin King is a contrarian. As the kind of fool who has a tenner on Arsenal to win this season’s Champions League, I am instantly able to recognise the delight he must feel by saying things like “there’s nothing [...]
Singles’ Day 2014: China’s retail giants set for sales windfall during world’s biggest online shopping day November 10, 2014 China's biggest online retailers, including the recently floated Alibaba, are set for the biggest online shopping day in the world tomorrow. Last year, Singles’ Day was responsible for $5.8bn (£3.6bn) worth of orders for Alibaba alone. This year that figure is expected to grow by 42 per cent to around $8.2bn, according to market [...]
Mid-cap firms outperform big companies amid stall in sales November 9, 2014 AVERAGE sales growth at UK companies remains sluggish, with profit margins under pressure, leading retail stockbroker The Share Centre said yesterday. The overall weak figures, however, conceal a strong disparity between different sized companies, with UK mid-caps outperforming their blue chip counterparts, according to the company’s latest Profit Watch UK report. The total annual revenues [...]
Retail sales to the fore as reporting ends – Wall St week November 9, 2014 WITH the US third-quarter earnings season almost at an end, many investors are breathing a sigh of relief as more companies surpassed profit expectations than in any quarter since 2010. But some analysts say investors may be brushing off their worries about corporate profits a little too soon. Economists are focused on retail sales after [...]
How does John Lewis’s Christmas 2014 Monty the Penguin advert compare with previous years? November 7, 2014 It’s already spawned parodies and has yet to air on TV, but the John Lewis Christmas advert is already on track to surpass the success of last year’s Bear and Hare ad. The cuddly penguin called Monty has worked his magic, garnering the video more than seven million views on YouTube and Facebook in the [...]
John Lewis ad tops 3m views November 6, 2014 JOHN Lewis is on track to capture the hearts, imaginations, and hopefully Christmas spending, of the UK once again with its festive ad that has hit 3m views on YouTube in just 24 hours. The ad has seen the success ahead of its TV debut on Channel 4 tonight. “What sets the John Lewis advert [...]