Retail news

• Christmas ads put on a diet as UK ban on TV junk food advertising bites

  20-12-2025 13:00
  Gone are shots of puddings and sweets as advertisers try to market other foods to stay within rules coming into force on 5 JanuaryThe festive season is traditionally a time of national culinary overindulgence but eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that this year’s crop of big-budget Christmas TV ads have been decidedly lean and sugar-free.From Tesco and Waitrose to Marks & Spencer and Asda, the UK’s biggest exponents of extravagant festive food marketing have put their Christmas
  
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• Retailers hope ‘panic weekend’ will bring Christmas cheer to UK sales

  20-12-2025 08:30
  Experts forecast spending will be more than 12% up on same period in 2024 after lucklustre figures so farRetailers are hoping for a last-minute dash for the shops this weekend after a lacklustre run-up to Christmas, with UK households forecast to spend £3.4bn, up more than 12% on the same weekend in 2024.Almost 50m shopping trips will be made by last-minute Father Christmases over the weekend, according to research by analysts GlobalData for Vouchercodes.co.uk, the vast majority of which w
  
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• Was 2025 the year that business retreated from net zero?

  20-12-2025 06:00
  From retailers to banks, carmakers to councils, the bold pledges for carbon-neutral economies are being watered down or scrappedAlmost a year since Donald Trump returned to the White House with a rallying cry to the fossil fuel industry to “drill baby, drill”, a backlash against net zero appears to be gathering momentum.More companies have retreated from, or watered down, their pledges to cut carbon emissions, instead prioritising shareholder returns over climate action. Continue rea
  
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• Elliott’s bookshop gamble is turning into a page-turner

  20-12-2025 06:00
  A private equity bet on physical books and bricks-and-mortar stores looks like the happier kind of plot twist
  
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