High-street

Warm weather in March helped give a lift to retailers despite a late Easter, with sales of gardening, DIY, food, and health and beauty products getting a boost from the spring sunshine. Purchases for Mother’s Day also helped retail sales climb 1.1% last month, according to a British Retail Consortium-KPMG survey (Guardian).

WH Smith high street sales fell 7% to £239m for the six months to 28 February (Daily Mail), while profits fell 32% to £15m. Donald Trump’s tariff war is more likely to lead to price cuts than inflation for many retailers in the UK, according to WH Smith CEO Carl Cowling, as east Asian suppliers seek alternatives to the US (Guardian). 

Shares in Ocado Group fell 5% on Wednesday after it announced founder & group CEO Tim Steiner would become chief executive of Ocado Solutions, the division that licenses the group’s robot warehouse technology to supermarkets globally (Times).

Gail’s is to drop its soya milk surcharge after a campaign by animal rights charity Peta argued the fee “unfairly discriminated” against customers. The bakery chain will offer free soya milk from 21 May but will continue to charge between 40p and 60p if costumers want oat milk in their coffee or tea (Guardian).

Starbucks’ UK retail business paid no corporation tax for last year, as it dived to a £35m loss after paying £40m in royalty and licence fees to its parent company. The US coffee chain said it made the payments despite sales declining 4% to £525.6m in the year to 29 September 2024 (Guardian).

The European Commission has warned of a steep rise in unsafe products detected in the EU coming mostly from China, as the bloc tries to stem the surge in cheap ecommerce imports (Financial Times).

Chinese e-commerce giants Temu and Shein have slashed their US spending on advertising platforms and said they will raise prices later this month, as they wrestle with the end of tax exemptions that have helped them undercut rivals such as Amazon (Financial Times). In almost identical statements, the rival companies said they had seen operating expenses rise “due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs”, adding they will make “price adjustments” from 25 April (BBC).

Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has said she has had heard “very loud and clear” calls to bring back VAT-free shopping for overseas visitors (Telegraph).

Financial Times ponders “the rise of the ‘it’ shake” – a made-to-order protein drink in a branded cup. “It’s a statement,” says Erika Tamayo, co-founder of the upmarket protein brand Hermosa.