Table of Contents
UK Retail Sales
-
- Key points
- Retail sales
-
- Figure 11: Retail sales trends, January 2019-August 2020
- BRC vs ONS
-
- Figure 12: UK retail sales y/y growth, BRC vs ONS, January 2018-August 2020
- Inflation
-
- Figure 13: Annual % change in the consumer price index for selected product groups, May 2019-August 2020
- Inflation and wages
-
- Figure 14: Real wages growth: wages growth vs inflation, January 2016-August 2020
- Consumer confidence
-
- Figure 15: Mintel financial confidence tracker, January 2019-August 2020
- Looking forward
Sector Focus – Online Retail
-
- Online sales slow in July as people emerge from lockdown
-
- Figure 16: All online retail sales (ex-fuel), non-seasonally adjusted, January 2019-August 2020
- Household sees uptick as time indoors encourage home improvements
-
- Figure 17: Annual % change in selected online categories, January 2019-August 2020
- Retailers tap into the boost in the home improvement sector
Launch Activity and Innovations
-
- UK: Tesco to offer free delivery to Clubcard Plus members
- UK: Burberry to launch luxury face masks costing £90
- UK: M&S and Ocado tie-up goes live with 6,800 M&S products exclusively available at Ocado
Headlines for the Month
-
- Co-ops
- Convenience stores
- Grocers
- Other food specialists
- Clothing retailing
- Footwear retailing
- Multi-sector retailing
- Department stores
- DIY retailing
- Furniture retailing
- Online
- Jewellers
News Analysis – Food and Drink
-
- Co-ops
- UK: Co-ops speedy delivery partnership with Deliveroo extended to 400 UK stores
- Convenience stores
- UK: AF Blakemore debuts online with acquisition of Vegan Store
- UK: Sainsbury’s opens its most central store in Leicester Square
- Grocers
- UK: Aldi trials audio prompts to aid blind and partially-sighted customers enter stores safely
- UK: Asda plans to expand online delivery capacity to 1 million after online sales double
- UK: Iceland creates 3,000 new jobs to cope with surge in online demand
- UK: Just Eat sees sales surge during lockdown
- UK: Morrisons
- …profits fall due to costs incurred because of COVID-19
- …to double number of in-store professional florists
- UK: Tesco
- …to support ‘exceptional’ online growth by creating 16,000 jobs
- …helps shoppers cut food waste in new charity tie-up
- UK: Waitrose
- …links up with Deliveroo in 12-week trial
- …to follow Morrisons lead in banning plastic bags
- Other food specialists
- UK: Hotel Chocolat opens ‘drive-to’ outlet
- Off-licences
- UK: Bestway to market off 37 stores across the UK
News Analysis – Clothing and Footwear
-
- Clothing retailing
- UK: Ann Summers to negotiate turnover-based rents with landlords after tough year
- UK: Burberry secures £573,000 PPE contract from government
- UK: Jigsaw to close 13 stores and cut more than 100 jobs as part of approved CVA
- UK: Johnston of Elgin reveals new sustainability label
- UK: New Look
- …launches CVA after securing new financing
- …landlords reject New Look proposed CVA which includes turnover-based rent plans
- …launches second CVA amid COVID-19
- UK: Next to launch beauty stores in former Debenhams sites
- UK: Primark
- …unleashes fleet of greener delivery trucks
- …reports ‘significantly higher’ sales than last year in pre-close update
- UK: Quiz secures favourable leasing terms following stores administration
- UK: River Island to cut another 350 jobs as it struggles to survive amid COVID-19
- UK: TK Maxx owner sees loss of £160 million
- UK: Tommy Hilfiger Kids opens at Icon Outlet
- UK: Urban Outfitters sees online sales boost Q2 profit
- Footwear retailing
- UK: Dr Marten’s sales up 51% despite closures towards the end of its financial year
- UK: Hotter receives £2m investment as part of CVA
News Analysis – Mixed Goods
-
- Multi-sector retailing
- UK: B&M to enter FTSE 100 following strong sales during COVID-19 pandemic
- UK: Halfords reports a peak in sales during lockdown but warns of ‘significant uncertainty’ ahead
- UK: M&S
- …teams up with Doodle to extend click & collect offer
- …to make 7,000 redundancies to reflect a ‘clear material shift in trade’ to online
- UK: Mothercare seals 10-year franchising deal with Boots
- UK: Poundland launches Pep&Co Home in new push towards homeware
- Department stores
- UK: Debenhams
- …appoints Hilco as part of its liquidation contingency plan
- …cuts 2,500 in a bid to reduce its cost base
- UK: Fenwick reports declining sales and expects ‘sizeable’ loss in the coming year
- UK: John Lewis
- …reveals new vegan and recyclable mattress range
- …teams up with furniture rental service Fat Llama
- …unveils concession tie-up with US-based brand Peloton
- …adds 30 new brands to its A/W range in a bid to ‘modernise’ offer
- …and Waitrose pilot virtual queuing technology in stores
- UK: Sanderson to open two new stores over the next year
- UK: Selfridges
- …to ‘change the way’ customers shop with the launch of Project Earth
- …Oxfam to open second-hand pop-up at Selfridges
- …to sell vertically farmed produce from its own store
News Analysis – Household Goods
-
- DIY retailing
- UK: Screwfix to open 40 new stores in response to growing demand for convenience
- UK: Topps Tiles sales up 13% in final quarter with ‘modest’ profits expected for the year
- Electrical retailing
- UK: Dixons Carphone to extend its ShopLive service to include bookable appointments
- Furniture retailing
- UK: DFS
- …sees latent demand lead to trading 'significantly ahead of expectations’
- …to offload The Sofa Workshops to rival Halo
- Homewares retailing
- UK: Cox & Cox records 59% y-o-y online growth in Q2 driven by homewares
- UK: Dunelm
- …performance ‘materially ahead’ of expectations as post-lockdown sales increase
- …sales down 3.9% due to COVID-19
News Analysis – Online
-
- UK: Amazon
- …and Morrisons expand grocery tie-up to launch ‘Morrisons on Amazon’
- …to create 7,000 jobs to meet growing online demand
- UK: AO.com post ‘strong’ sales but remains cautious with Brexit to come
- UK: Asos expects profits to beat expectations
- UK: Boden reports ‘material impact on sales’
- UK: Eve Sleep raises full-year revenue expectation
- UK: Sosandar sees revenues soar 103% to £9 million
- UK: The Hut Group targets valuation of £4.5bn in IPO
News Analysis – Other Retail
-
- Book and stationery retailing
- UK: The Works at a pre-tax loss as COVID-19 has ‘significant impact’ on performance
- Jewellers
- UK: LVMH
- …and Tiffany & Co extend deadline to close £12 billion deal
- …pulls out of Tiffany & Co deal
- Sports and leisure goods retailing
- UK: Frasers Group
- …delays results for the second year running
- …results show pre-tax profits are down 19.9%
- …rescues DW Sports in £37 million deal
- UK: Gymshark secures new investor General Atlantic for further growth and international expansion
- UK: JD Sports pre-tax profits slump 61% as a result of shifting revenues to fulfill online orders
News Analysis – Economy
-
- UK: Government announce ‘bounce back’ plan for retail industry
- UK: July retail sales continue their recovery from June and grow 2.7%
- UK: BRC-KPMG
- …August retail sales up 4.7%
- …July retail sales recover as lockdown restrictions ease up
Back to top