Tag Archives: retail

By James Smith, in the penultimate article of a four-part series

It’s fair to say that none of us saw this one coming, and for many businesses, it’s been the most challenging of times. However, the bicycle industry has fared better than most. Ray Howard from Howards Cycles shares his thoughts on how it’s been for his bike shop looking back over the last year

The Association of Cycle Traders (ACT) has reported an increase in both new and returning customers in December 2020 among IBDs, in comparison to 2019. The survey was part of an IRC initiative, where retail feedback is collected by a number of trade organisations for Government lobbying to the benefit …

COVID-19 has led to 2020 being the “worst year on record” for retail sales growth, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said. Total sales fell by 0.3% for 2020, compared with 2019. Sales increased by 1.8% in December, on a total basis, against a growth of 0.2% in December 2019. …

Halfords has reported cycling LFL growth of 35.4% in its Q3 trading update, covering the 13 weeks to 1st January 2021. This was driven by continued strength in adult mechanical, e-bikes and e-scooters, despite global container shortages and port congestion impacting availability. The retailer’s performance cycling business Tredz continued to …

Spend on last year’s Small Business Saturday UK hit £1.1 billion, exceeding the billion pound mark for the first time. Rebecca Morley speaks to director Michelle Ovens

Global omnichannel commerce platform Lightspeed has launched the Lightspeed Supplier Network for North American retailers. “The launch of the fully integrated stock ordering solution transforms supply chain management for SMBs, democratising access to the strategic inventory visibility once reserved predominantly for enterprise retail and e-commerce giants as the global COVID-19 …

Sales of electric bikes have more than doubled over the past six months, according to new figures from specialist electric bike retailer Energise. “The demand for electric bikes has multiplied over and again, and at Energise our customers say the main reason for their bike purchase is because they’re worried …

Total year-on-year footfall for 2020 fell by 43.4%, according to BRC-ShopperTrak data. Year-on-year UK footfall decreased by 46.1% in December, a 19.3 percentage point improvement from November when England was under lockdown. Footfall on high streets declined by 49.5% year on year. This was the worst-performing location type for the …

New digital product discovery platform Buyerdock is searching for indie retail volunteers for trials. The platform has been developed over the past two years, through discussions with retailers and sellers from the UK, Europe and the USA. During the first lockdown, funding was raised to develop the test platform. “Discovering …