Lifestyle

​January is a major month for launching activewear collections and edits. And H&M's new Good Move edit reflects this while also incorporating the retail giant’s beauty and interiors offer too.

​US-based licensing giant Marquee Brands has acquired heritage lifestyle and fashion brand Laura Ashley from Gordon Brothers for an undisclosed sum. 

​UK retail is bracing for a tough 2025 as 2024 closed with the news around 13,500 stores closed last year, a rise of 28% on 2023, according to Centre for Retail Research (CRR).

​After a strong performance throughout 2024, UK shopping centres ended the year with a flourish topping the footfall list of places to shop in December.

Job losses in UK retail topped almost 170,000 this year after the collapse of major high street chains, according to data from the Altus Group/Centre for Retail Research.

​Barclays has released UK data looking back at 2024 and perhaps the key point is that while clothing stores’ transaction volumes grew 3%, spend growth was nowhere to be seen with spend down 0.2%.

​Retailers work hard to ensure consumers have the products they really want put in front of them, but shoppers continue to return a large percentage of the goods they buy and worse still, returns fraud is on the rise

​Wourth Group — the company that used to be known as Woolovers — has filed its results for the year to the end of March with the figures showing that revenue increased substantially as it made acquisitions.

​It may not be headline news, but Zalando has commissioned new research to highlight the impact it makes on Europe’s economy and the numbers it has come up with are impressive.

​Accounts for the companies that own and operate the David Beckham brands and businesses showed another successful year in 2023.

​Footfall figures have already suggested the hoped-for pre-Christmas rush happened but wasn’t as frantic as hoped and now more data tell us the appetite for post-Christmas sales isn’t as great as expected either.

Wajima, a coastal city with a population of just over 20,000, is a nationally celebrated centre for fine lacquerware.

​Retailers continue to struggle and the number in critical financial distress was up 25% in the latest quarter compared to the three months before it, according to insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor.

China's commerce ministry said it would extend its anti-dumping investigation into brandy originating from the European Union by three months, less than the full extension allowed under its previous guidance.

​While there have been warnings on a weak retail performance this Christmas, not all reports are downbeat.

Good, but not good enough to bring cheer to UK retailers this festive season, given some more new figures on trading performance.