Retail Insider Zoom Cocktail Hour with Angus Thirlwell, CEO, Hotel Chocolat

Retail Insider, in partnership with Novomind, held its second Zoom Cocktail Hour with Angus Thirlwell, CEO of Hotel Chocolat, who revealed how developments at the business had been dramatically accelerated as a result of Covid-19. As the lockdown hit Hotel Chocolat relied solely on its website and this has continued deliver significant online sales uplifts.…

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Transforming Retail Awards – why YOU should enter!

Calling all innovative companies who want to tell the world about their amazing work… you have until 10th July to enter Retail Insider’s fourth annual Transforming Retail Awards. And the good news in these times of straitened finances for retail is that it is entirely free to enter and also very easy. Far from being…

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Managing the difficult challenge of reopening stores

When McDonald’s reopened my local Drive Thru restaurant my son absolutely demanded we made a visit. What was interesting was that as lockdown was in place there were no employees required in the restaurant. Cost savings you might think. Not so, because they had all been deployed outside where many more people were required to…

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Innovative Retailer: Atoms

Name: Atoms The Place: Headquartered in Brooklyn, US. No shops yet – it’s more of an online outfit. And it’s teeny weeny – less than 20 employees. The Story: Shoes. We all have to have them, it’s one of the very few universal products. The world must be shod! Can’t argue with it so far:…

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Retailers and restaurants enter a very different landscape

As non-essential retailers reopen their stores for the first time in three months they return to a very different environment to the one they left when lockdown was enforced. Over the coming weeks they will realise that some elements of their operations will be changed indefinitely and there will unfortunately be some casualties as a…

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Sustainable Focus: The return to plastic after Covid

Welcome to this column within our broader sustainability section which focuses on what retail is doing to address the issues in its industry.  Today an analysis of the role of plastic in the Covid 19 crisis brought to you by Retail Insider with Clipper and Give Back Box In the past few years, really positive moves have…

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Rising to challenge of increased flour demand

Home baking continues to enjoy its meteoric rise in popularity as a result of Covid-19 that is making flour one of the few items to still suffer shortage problems in retail outlets. Whereas things like hand sanitiser and toilet rolls have long returned to normal levels of availability in supermarkets this has not been the…

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