Spare a thought today for retailers in the UK. Not just because at the time of writing the sun is shining and the England football team are due to play a critical game this afternoon, thus conspiring on both levels to keep people out of the stores. The main reason to feel sympathy for UK [...]
Posts under ‘Global economy’
So why doesn’t it feel better?
On London’s Oxford Street yesterday a man was stood on a box with a loud hailer and a wearing a board proclaiming in big bold letters: “panic no more”. Through the loud hailer he was proclaiming to all the shoppers walking along the Street that “the recession was over” and that “it was safe to [...]
What a difference a year makes
New York in early January would never seem to be the most hospitable of months to visit this great City. The winds that whip through the Avenues and Streets can cut right through you. A year ago, when retailers converged on New York for the NRF convention, the mood matched the weather as the full [...]
New beginnings?
Signing off my last blog before the Christmas holiday I said that prospects for the New Year could be made or broken by the consumer and their continuing capacity to surprise. And surprise they did here in the UK with retailers reporting very strong trading which got even stronger with the start of their clearance [...]
That end of year feeling
Its that time of year when the media are full of reviews of both the year and the decade about to end - the “noughties” as it has been dubbed. What a decade of contrasts it has been, but best characterised as being about “boom” and “bust”. For much of the decade, the economy within [...]
The mood we’re in
Around the world, retailers are getting understandably nervous. We’re now well and truly into the count-down towards the critical Christmas season for many countries. After the year we have been having, a good or bad season could literally make or break a number of retailers. The mood in recent weeks seems to have shifted from [...]
India’s step change
Today saw the opening of the annual India Retail Forum here in Mumbai. And its already been a fascinating few hours, for no other reason than to listen to a business sector that appears chastened and shocked still by the downturn that affected them since the collapse of Lehmans exactly a year ago. Many retailers around the world enjoyed [...]
The shape of recovery
The news here in the UK has been dominated in the last couple of days by the declaration from economists that the recession is over. Ignoring the fact that many people believe the economists have little credibility left after failing to see the severity of the downturn in the first place, it seems that the [...]
More science, less art
At the end of last month, the global advertising industry met in Cannes for the international advertising festival, Cannes Lions. Battered and bruised as much as any sector of business - and in some cases, even more - the industry executives were clearly looking for any reasons to be optimistic. From all the feedback it [...]
Putting it in perspective
Three days, 90 speakers and over 800 attendees later, the 2009 World Retail Congress has drawn to a close. In trying to put it all into perspective, its interesting to look back over the substance of the sessions, read the many press cuttings and to recall the countless conversations we all had. How best to summarise the mood?
From [...]
