industry news Win for
Papyrus owner Fiona Fabien, owner of gift store Papyrus Gifts was the lucky winner of the Exclusively Housewares competition. She received £2,000 of travel vouchers following the show’s prize draw. She commented: “I’ve never won anything before, so this is fantastic, particularly as it is such a generous amount. I have been thinking it could be the chance to sort out a holiday of a lifetime, which for me, would be doing something like trekking in Nepal with my husband!” Papyrus is already a well-known namein the industry, having enjoyed 20 years of successful cookshop retail, as Fiona explains, “The cookshop side of our business does well: we saw its turnover increase by a higher percentage than our card and gift shops during the credit crunch…The Papyrus Cookshop was established in 1990 when we moved into our West-End flagship store. We had an extra floor of retail space and decided to open the cookshop through a passion for cooking. It is well stocked with good quality, well designed and affordable cookware. It has always been regarded as a wee treasure trove by Glasgow cooks and often gets mentioned in our local press.”
Retail growth ‘will slow in Q3’
he last sitting by the Retail Think Tank (RTT) revealed that retail health made a slight but significant improvement over the second quarter of the year, representing growth in three consecutive quarters. Members also predicted that growth will slow and remain neutral in quarter three. Nick Bubb of Arden Partners commented: “Quarter two was a volatile period on the High Street and difficult to assess, not least because of the general election, World Cup and emergency budget. The football certainly boosted TV sales, but may simply have brought business forward from the autumn. Food sales appeared to pick up,
T
but in Non-Food, with hot weather and sporting events keeping people out of the shops, it was often ‘one day up, one day down’ - a zero sum gain. With many retailers just trundling along, there was more regional disparity, with Scotland and the North East held back by public sector job fears, but with London and the South East boosted by tourists and the recovery in the city.” Helen Dickinson, KPMG said of the next quarter, “Comparatives are going to be tougher in quarter three and with so much going on, the media continues to play a key role to play in shaping consumer confidence. Looking ahead, we remain very concerned about the potential volatility of demand in quarter three.” For more information visit
www.retailthinktank.co.uk
year in May 2010, says research from specialist search and social marketing consultancy, Greenlight. Its Fashion Sector Report for May showed a total of 9.7 million searches, with womenswear continuing to dominate, accounting for 67 per cent.
ASOS a top tweeter! U
K consumers’ online search volumes for fashion-related terms hit a high for the
ALWORTHS BRANCHES INTO WALES
Variety retailer Alworths has revealed plans to open its first store in Wales on August 13. The store will occupy the former Woolworths premises in Llandudno and will be the 11th in the chain. There are also plans to open a further five stores across the country. Andy Latham, managing director of alworths said, “We’re delighted to be launching our first store in Wales and we hope that the store in
Llandudno will be well received by the local community. We are looking at a variety of other sites in both North and South Wales and are looking to open a minimum of five more alworths stores in Wales over the next year. The Llandudno store will be our first coastal store, therefore we will tailor the ranges accordingly. During peak summer months we intend to stock holiday
essentials and a range of beach toys too.” For more information visit
www.alworths.com
Figures show that ASOS was the most followed fashion brand in social media, with a combined following of almost 300,000 across Facebook and Twitter and an extra 2,506 followers of the ASOS_Dashboard account, which displays live updates on postal orders, and 3,132 following ASOS_HeretoHelp. Marks & Spencer was the most interactive, producing 774 ‘posts’ and ‘tweets’ in May. Debenhams came top of the ‘most visible’ list, which looked at both natural and paid search results, achieving 52 per cent visibility through ranking at position one for 23 key words. ASOS was a close second with 41 per cent visibility. For more information visit
www.greenlightsearch.com
6 Department Store Buyer
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