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 [...]
Location, location, location
You can walk down a familiar street and very often take the surroundings for granted. Walking along London’s Oxford Street this week - a pretty big street admittedly and one that sits in the top 10 rankings of most expensive retail locations in the world - and I saw it in all its shocking reality. [...]
Keep listening to your customers
A few days ago, Retail Week held a special evening here in London as part of its 21st anniversary celebrations. It brought together four true “legends” of UK retailing to answer questions from today’s generation of retail leaders. The point being, that for many board-level directors running retail businesses, the downturn of the last 18 [...]
Time for something new
Having just returned from the United States, it was interesting to contrast the differing views prevalent amongst retailers there. The official figures don’t help much in giving an accurate take on what is happening. On the one hand, the economy is moving out of recession but at a huge cost - not just to jobs [...]
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 [...]
A question of talent
Its become an annual obsession every late August here in the UK to discuss educational standards. The reason is that this is when students at both 16 and 18 year old age level receive their exam results and so determining their future path to further education, or not. Its become an obsession - mostly by [...]
The Outlets return
Back in the early 1990s, the big talk in European retail was that the answer to the recession hitting retail was going to be factory outlet centres. Long proven in the US as a way of brands and retailers clearing stocks in a way that protected the heritage of the brand and kept their main [...]
Something big is happening
The big news that has been exciting new techology watchers over the last few days is the confirmation that online music streaming service Spotify has developed an “app” for Apple’s iPhone.
Spotify offers an unlimited, on-demand music streaming service online and has been growing rapidly. Clearly it is a rival to Apple’s own iTunes and [...]
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 [...]
