Louise Moye

What’s been happening in retail this week? ·      boohooMAN.com launched marketplace Brand Locker, featuring 563 brands covering fashion, accessories, nutrition and pre-loved luxury. A further 500 labels are due to join. ·      John Lewis Partnership indicated a staff bonus would return if profit reaches £200m for the year ending January 2026. Profit before tax and exceptional items stood at £126m last year. ·      John Lewis & Partners is piloting a rapid delivery pilot with Uber Eats for 150 nursery, beauty and gift products. Customers within 8km of Leeds and Stratford branches can receive items within an hour. ·      Waitrose & Partners rolled out its Delivery Pass nationwide, offering a subscription starting at £8 monthly to allows one daily online delivery without extra charge. ·      Currys plc rolled out an AI video diagnostics tool in partnership with Vyntelligence to improve repair efficiency and reduce engineer callouts. The platform allows customers to send short videos of tech issues, enabling faster fixes. ·      Marks and Spencer introduced invisible UV tags on four-pint milk bottles to improve recycling traceability, investing £100,000 in partnership with Polytag. ·      Marks and Spencer had an online advert banned by the Advertising Standards Authority after it featured a model deemed “unhealthily thin”. ·      River Island may collapse within weeks unless creditors approve a restructuring plan to close 33 stores, cut rents on 71, and write off debt. A £10m funding gap is expected by mid-September. ·      Hilco Capital is considering a bid for Claire's UK business, which operates around 200 stores. Interpath is overseeing the sale, as the US parent explores restructuring options. Up to one-third of UK branches may close post-sale, with Alteri Investors and Modella Capital also potential bidders. ·      MANGO posted a 12% revenue increase in the first half, with sales exceeding £1.5bn. Growth was driven by strong collection demand and international performance, with Spain, France and the US among top markets. ·      Wickes reported 6.4% like-for-like retail growth to £634.4m for the six months to 28 June. Group revenues rose 4.5% to £847.9m, driven by volume-led demand in timber, garden, and decorating. TradePro sales rose 10%, with membership reaching 615,000. Five to seven new stores are planned this year. 💥 💥 💥 Download our latest Risk and Resilience Report with Barclays Corporate Banking, outlining a retail resilience framework. It quantifies where retailers perceive risks in the year ahead, including cyber security, operational and financial risks. Download the report below ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/emFFv6Kj

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After acquiring the oldest chocolatier in Sussex, a former Fortnum & Mason confectionery buyer is now trying to make her brand less reliant on sales to her famous one-time employer. Alice Crone and her husband, William, bought Audrey's Chocolates in Hove last year and have since been increasing its sales from its own-brand products to other retailers. “Our predecessors were really focused on the Fortnum & Mason contract, which is about 80 per cent of the business; we really want other people to know about Audrey’s,” Alice, 34, said. Since buying the company for an undisclosed sum with money from their own savings, friends, family and private investors, the couple have increased annual sales from £1.6m in April last year to £2.1m in the 12 months to September this year. 🔗 Read more: https://lnkd.in/eQKJcFKi

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Managing the Butchery (When You're Not a Butcher): Full Episode on Wednesday 3rd September 2025. Listen to the teaser below! Episode 27 of Retail101online takes store managers deep into the world of butchery — without needing to pick up a knife. Host Mark Lack explores how to manage this complex, high-margin department with confidence, even if you're not trained in meat cutting. Learn to challenge shrink, monitor hygiene, measure yield, monitor daily plans, and drive value-add performance. #Retail101 #ButcheryLeadership #ButcheryManagement #ShrinkControl #RetailShrink #YieldMatters #GroceryLeadership #StoreManagerTips #RetailTraining #KPIAccountability #FreshFood #ValueAdd #MeatRetail #RetailPodcast

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More on #kantar #numerator data to come but it's notable that the decline at Asda is slowing. Whilst this is neg on neg (year on year) the pace of decline is slowing and given that Asda are comfortably winning Grocer 33 most weeks with a solid gap on price, it's clear that volumes are moving too. This is before any meaningful range / space rationalisation. At Morrisons, the picture is dimmer. Inflation at 5% sees Tesco winning at 7.4% and Sainsbury's also performing well at 5.2%. I did highlight some months back that Morrisons were not making enough hay whilst the sun shone (IE Asda struggling badly 8 miles away). However Morrisons are just 0.9% positive. Which is a slow march to negative numbers here. Whilst the recent annual results were strong, they in fact included the sale of the petrol business and were for the year ending October 2024! A lot has happened in that time. For anyone who walks the stores. It's clear that the replenishment programme just isn't working, Focal cameras are not the answer and the fluid nature of how they seem to replenish means there's never a time when the shop looks right. This added to a myriad of promotions, a confused loyalty offer, the convenience side of the business falling off a cliff and prices not sharp enough means there are simply "nowhere near enough reasons" to shop at Morrisons. On the share front, it comes and goes sure. But they're just 0.1% ahead of Lidl, who Kantar had at over 10% growth...... #retail #kantar #sales

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