Supermarkets are braced for their busiest day of the year today, The Guardian writes. Shoppers are expected to spend almost £900m on groceries for the Christmas break, with Tesco expecting 10 million shoppers and to sell one-third of its Christmas turkeys and Sainsbury’s predicting its busiest shopping period would start at about 12pm.
The Financial Times picks up on the Weetabix story from earlier this week. The paper writes that owner Bright Food may struggle to recoup its £1.2bn investment in the rumoured sale.
The Telegraph picks up a Reuters tale that Champagne drinkers in Britain face higher prices next year as the impact of the shock Brexit vote on the British pound takes its toll, industry executives warned.
Small shops are beginning to experience the fallout of Brexit, with inflation and slowing sales growth resulting in “significant stress” for the finances of retailers, Begbies Traynor has warned (The Times).
The Times and The Mail pick up the latest GfK consumer confidence index, which rebounded in December, although concerns around Brexit remained.
Sales of liqueurs appear to be rising all year round – and not just at Christmas – with 40 million bottles sold in the 12 months to November in the UK, The Times reports.
Weight Watchers is benefitting from the weight loss of Oprah Winfrey, The Financial Times and The Guardian note. Every pound the US celebrity loses adds as much as $3m to the value of the company. The weight-loss company’s shares surged by as much as 18% on Thursday after it announced that Winfrey had lost 40 pounds using its programme and would share her personal experience in a new marketing campaign.
The amount spent by shoppers using contactless cards and devices soared by 164% last year, in another record-breaking year for increasingly popular “touch and go” payments (The Guardian).
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