Retail

Love it or hate it, Christmas shopping is part and parcel of the season but how did UK retailers fare this year? There were clear winners and losers on the high street with Debenhams so far taking the biggest hit with like for like sales 5.7% down in the 18 weeks to 5th Jan.

In case you didn’t know today is Black Friday, the American import that took the UK by storm a few years ago. Does it now have the same momentum as it did when it launched in UK stores in 2013?

For the majority of us who are returning to work after the Christmas break, apart from the cold weather, diets and “dry January”, one of the first things that we usually read about is the retail results from the festive period.

I have to confess that whilst I love visiting my customers as I travel around the UK, actually the method of transport is almost always painful.

Call me old-fashioned, but I have never really got what all the fuss is about with Black Friday which rears its ugly head again tomorrow. Retailers seem to get very worked up about it, but probably not as much as the customers, and it always seems to be a lot of hype about nothing.