News English — Topshop

Retail is detail... and customer service.  Long gone are the days when you could instruct your store staff to decline any returns or refunds for whatever reason. However, in an online world the ability of customers who feel they have been wronged to broadcast their grievance has empowered customers to a level which legacy retailers do not appear well prepared for. Following the [again] lacklustre results from Arcadia Group we took it upon us to go through their finances to see if there is anything alluding to why the company is not doing well and gaining online traction where Asos...

Christmas window display on Regent Street, Oxford Street and Argyll Street. Hunter, Topshop, Tommy Hilfiger, Superdry, Burberry and more

There are so many questions about the retailer, its presumed staged divestment of BHS, its [lack of] response on the six or seven senior management departures (in 2017 alone!!), its reluctance to invest properly, its China rollout, why it continues making a loss in the US, what is happening in Ireland, and has the owner finally turned into a liability for the company... among many many others. Taveta Investments Ltd (ultimate parent company) and its subsidiaries are providing opaque P&L accounts making any deep analysis tricky. However, top line revenues are always telling of what is happening under the surface....

A Bloomberg article [31/10/16] points out that Nike is losing out to its competitors in the innovation race. The piece is based on Bank of America Corporation's meetings with Asian suppliers and conversations with competitors. Are we talking about the same Nike that released the very first self-adaptive-lacing shoe only to find that Puma also released the same type of self-lacing shoe in the last few months? Source: ycharts.com Yes, Nike dropped a large bunch of their innovations team focusing on wearables a few years ago in favour of more pragmatic R&D efforts. However, we have not seen any signs...