There is a public outcry whenever a historic department store closes. Customers wax lyrical about how it was an important part of their lives. Former employees are interviewed by newspapers and local radio stations. Everybody worries about the future of

Wilko may not have much of a profile outside the UK, but here it has become a familiar and sometimes reassuring sight. Over the decades, as Woolworths and a tranche of traditional department stores closed, Wilko became a mainstay venue

The UK’s cost-of-living crisis is familiar to us all now, but it continues to drive creativity among retailers.

A lot of the most visible innovation in retail over the last decade or so has been online.

There has been some genuinely positive news for UK retailers this week in the shape of improved consumer confidence figures.

It’s hard to credit, but some of the UK’s biggest retailers are at the top of a shameful list.

Consumers are shopping less often. They may spend more on a ‘big shop’ but make fewer top-up visits, for example.

Retailers have a column marked ‘shrinkage’ on their profit & loss account. Shrinkage is shorthand for theft

Mars Bars are getting new packaging, using paper-based wrappers that can be more easily recycled than plastic.

There have been calls to take action to prevent retailers from ‘profiteering’ by raising prices further during the ongoing inflation crisis.