That’s the vision of a panel of retail experts brought together for a BT-led Retailtopia project, which also envisages stores that connect with customers before they get to them, and allow contactless payment on arrival.

Success in domestic retail will also open up new international opportunities, argues the Retailtopia panel, which included representatives from the British Retail Consortium, Which?, Nielsen, BT, Forum for the Future and Mastercard as well as former Tesco and TopShop executives. It makes 10 key predictions for the future of British retail by 2020 (see below).

But, it warns, there’s a danger that retailers will fail to make the necessary strategic investments in order to put themselves at the front of the pack.

Professor Patrick Barwise, chair of the Retailtopia panel, who is professor at the London Business School and chairman of Which?, said: “The UK is already a global leader in online shopping, with nearly £30bn of sales coming through this channel in 2011.

“But retailers face tough challenges in the current economy. There’s a danger that a focus on short-term profitability and reduced investment in innovation could damage our long-term ability to create the best shopping experience in the world and ensure we’re still a global leader in 2020.”

Those investments should focus on seven priority areas, from the use of analytics in order to tailor the shopping experience, to distribution and retailer collaborations that bring about improvements to the high street, according to the Retailtopia vision paper.

Emer Timmons, president of BT Global Services UK, said: “Networked technology has a huge role to play in delivering the next generation of retail – from the warehouse and stockroom, to the store, home and mobile device. The ability to shop for anything, anytime, anywhere will mean retailers demand significantly more from their IT infrastructure and that will show the true potential of superfast broadband in powering business success.”

Source:www.internetretailing.net

According to research published today by Seaintel, Maersk Line maintains the number one spot as the most reliable carrier at 75%, followed by Hamburg Süd at 72% and APL at 67%.

Compared to January, Maersk Line is thus seen to have improved 3%, APL has improved 7% while Hamburg Süd has maintained their performance.

In the past eight months, Maersk Line has been top performer five times while Hamburg Süd has been top performer three times.

Reliability is measured as arrival on the same calendar day or the day before but expanding the on-time definition to include vessels arriving only one day late shows that reliability is 78% while the top three performers remain the same, all exhibiting improvements compared to January.

Under that expanded definition, Maersk Line saw reliability increase from 89% to 91%, Hamburg Süd improved from 87% to 88% and APL improved from 86% to 87%.

At the lower end of the league, however, MSC’s reliability slid from 63% in January to 61% last month.

Out of 8,400 measured arrivals in February 2012, Seaintel’s monthly schedule reliability report now includes 1,900 arrivals in trades to and from Africa, Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent.

Measurements are based on the SeaIntel database comprised of more than 58,000 arrivals across 2,200 vessels, 29 trade lanes and 51 carriers since July 2011.

Source:www.ifw-net.com

Sixty per cent of UK’s internet shoppers buy online up to three times a month, while 40% buy at least once a week and 10% buy 10 times or more in the course of a month, according to the 2012 WorldPay eCommerce Basket Survey, which quizzed 2,000 people who had bought goods online in the last 12 months.

Some 57% of UK consumers buy books and literature online, compared to 15% who buy film rentals and download, the survey found. It also found UK consumers who bought groceries online were most likely to buy fruit (31%) and vegetables (32%), although they spent the most on alcohol, with women spending £138 and men spending £217.

Those who bought clothing online were most likely to buy shoes (49% of women and 38% of men) but spent the most on handbags, with women spending an average of £187. Travel customers were most likely to book hotels or other accommodation online (42%), with 38% buying air travel. On average £1,608 was spent on package holidays.

Men, the survey found, were more prolific shoppers, spending an average of £3,495 a year, compared to £3,210 for women. Men spent £145 a year more on electronics, £150 more on lifestyle and entertainment and £235 more on travel. Women spent £315 on fashion and clothing compared to £188 for men.

“Every day we hear reports that consumer spending is under pressure,” said Gabriel Hopkins, head of ecommerce products at WorldPay, “but ecommerce continues to grow at a healthy rate. Men are renowned for avoiding shops, but they’re enthusiastic e-shoppers.

“Men typically spend the most online except in the areas of fashion and clothing where women are power shoppers, spending almost twice as much. With more people than ever buying physical and virtual goods online, it’ll be intriguing to see whether this cultural shift has an impact on the ONS basket contents and value.”

Source: www.internetretailling.net

Analysts at Capital Economics blame slow demand in the EU and point out that China sold more to the US than Europe in February, the first time this has happened since 2007.

Commenting on Chinese trade data released over the weekend, the analysts said: “Exports to the US were a bright spot, but the general picture from China’s latest trade data is that global demand is still subdued.

“What’s more, imports have grown only slightly faster than exports so far in 2012. A sharp slowdown in imports for domestic use rather than processing and re-export is a particular concern.

“Averaging the data for January and February helps clear away the distortions introduced by Chinese New Year and on this basis, Chinese export growth dropped to 6.9% year-on-year over the last two months, compared with 14.3% in Q4 2011.

“This was the slowest since the crisis period in 2009 and one of the slowest in the last decade. We expect export growth to remain under 10% year-on-year over the next few months.”

The data revealed that China’s trade deficit (exports minus imports) hit $31.5 billion in February, the largest single-month deficit on record, and $4.2 billion in January and February, which was the largest at the start of the year since 2004.

Capital Economics says that a trade surplus may return in March but, if it does, it will be small.

Source: www.ifw-net.com

The BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor for February 2012 showed a 9.9% rise in sales in the non-food, non-store category, which is predominantly accounted for by internet sales, alongside telephone and mail order.

While the figure was well ahead of the 2.3% rise in total UK retail sales and the 0.3% fall in like-for-like UK sales, it represented a slowdown on the figures both for last month and last year. In January 2012, ecommerce sales grew by 11.3%, and in December 2011 by 18.5%. Last February they grew by 10.4%.

“Online continues to grow faster than any other retail channel,” said Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, “but the rate of increase in sales has slowed since Christmas and is well down on the kind of performance that was typical in 2010 and before.

“Non-food sales have been worst affected by customers’ continuing fears about their own finances and prospects. That’s being felt online as well as in stores, but the slowing of online growth may now also be reflecting some maturing of the market.”

Across UK retail, food sales grew by 4.9% in total, or 1.9% on a like-for-like basis, as, said the BRC, shoppers stocked up in the cold weather. Non-food grew by 1.9% in total and fell by 0.3%, like-for-like, despite promotions and discounts. The BRC said February was slower for sales of larger purchases, clothing, footwear and homewares, as cautious consumers held back from spending.

“The reality of weak sales shows that a convincing reality remains illusory,” said Robertson. “Falling inflation has eased the squeeze on household finances and halted the slide in consumer confidence but that’s at risk from fuel price rises and Budget uncertainty.

“Unemployment is expected to rise further, causing increased nervousness about job security, which is keeping confidence fragile. Any sense of improving optimism is not yet translating into more spending.”

He also called on the Chancellor to use the Budget to “hold back business costs, which will support jobs, growth and the much-needed consumer turnaround.”

Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG, said: “Consumers remain reluctant to spend unless encouraged by promotional activity. Thus, while the market is still growing slightly in headline sales terms, profitability continues to be eroded through loss of margins.

“Many retailers feel they’re fighting very hard just to stand still at best and don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. However, there are retailers out there who deliver what the customer wants and needs – in terms of product, brand and price – which proves that if the proposition is spot on it is still possible to outperform the market and the competition.”

Reasons for optimism in the grocery market were also hailed by Joanne Denney-Finch, chief executive of food and drink analysts the IGD. She said: “These results are an improvement on January and a sign that consumer confidence is heading in the right direction. Our research shows that, although half of shoppers (47%) still believe they will be worse off in the year ahead, this is a more positive picture than last year, when 61% felt this way.”

Source:www.internetretailing.net

The BRC said that like-for-like retail sales – a measure that strips out changes in floorspace and is favoured by equity analysts – fell by an annual 0.3 percent in February in value terms, the same decline as the previous month.

Total retail sales – a measure used more by economists and which is closer to that found in official statistics – rose 2.3 percent on the year after a 2.1 percent rise in January.

“The reality of weak sales shows that a convincing revival remains illusory,” said BRC director general Stephen Robertson.

“Falling inflation has eased the squeeze on household finances and halted the slide in consumer confidence, but that’s at risk from fuel price rises and Budget uncertainty,” he added.

A surge in oil prices has pushed petrol prices to a record high, and some households fear further austerity measures in finance minister George Osborne’s 2012 budget this month.

At 3.6 percent, consumer price inflation is well below the three-year peak of 5.2 percent that it hit in September. But this still suggests that total retail sales are falling in volume terms, with consumers only attracted to many types of items if they were discounted, the BRC said.

The BRC figures contrast with official data for January, which showed a 4.4 percent annual rise in retail sales values, driven in part by smaller stores not covered in the BRC survey.

The Confederation of British Industry reported a strong rebound in sales in February.

The BRC said that strong food sales due to snowy weather at the start of February helped to drive overall growth, as Britons stocked up on pies, pizzas and puddings.

Britain’s biggest retailer, supermarket chain Tesco, announced 20,000 new jobs on Monday – though some analysts said this represented a reversal of previous job cuts that had led service levels to lag behind those of rivals.

Source:www.uk.reuters.com

China’s factories grew more than expected in February as new export orders for big firms bounced back, according to a government purchasing managers index (PMI). The official PMI rose to 51.0, above expectations of 50.7 and higher than 50.5 in January.

Private sector PMIs on Thursday pointed to some improvements in factory activity in China, India and Taiwan, although in China it also showed smaller companies lagging a rebound at larger companies.

HSBC’s China PMI stood at 49.6, a shade higher than January’s reading of 48.8, but still under the 50-point threshold demarcating expansion from contraction.

The manufacturing surveys, the first leads on factory activity in the region, offered tentative signs of a recovery from the slump in the final months of 2011 caused by faltering external demand and fragile business and consumer sentiment. However, the economic picture was far from complete.

“We’re in that familiar period where business conditions indicators are improving while the hard data is yet to reflect that,” said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, economist at Credit Suisse in Singapore.

Coming barely hours after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony offered a tempered view of the U.S. economy, the PMIs provided markets with some respite. The Australian dollar rallied, aided by robust domestic economic data, as did stock markets in Asia.

Data due later on Thursday is expected to show the euro zone’s factory activity contracted in February for a seventh straight month. A similar report on U.S. factory activity is expected to show manufacturing picked up in February.

Other PMIs released showed Spanish factories contracting for the tenth straight month, Poland on the dividing mark of 50, and growth in Russia moderating.

The HSBC PMI for Taiwan, one of Asia’s most open economies which sits at the centre of many global technology chains, was starkly optimistic. The index rose to 52.7, marking the first expansion in factory output since May 2011, led by export orders.

India’s manufacturing sector expansion eased back from its strongest pace in eight months for a PMI of 56.6 in February compared with 57.5 in January. However, new orders touched a 10-month high.

Like in many countries though, official Indian data doesn’t paint such a rosy picture. Growth in gross domestic product dropped to its slowest pace in nearly 3 years in the final quarter of 2011, with manufacturing and mining at the fore of the slowdown, figures showed on Wednesday.

South Korean data on Thursday showed exports for January and February combined grew just 6.8 percent, weak enough to underscore grim prospects for demand from debt-ridden Europe and the anaemic nature of U.S. orders.

DIVERGENCES

The global economy has been difficult to read so far this year. Business sentiment indicators have improved, even if some PMIs have suggested continued contraction in activity.

Corporate earnings and forecasts have been a mixed bag.

The world’s largest heavy machinery maker, Caterpillar Inc, said on Wednesday it expects record sales and profit this year as economic activity in China and the United States picks up.

“In 2012 we’re going to have another year of record sales and profit,” Chief Executive Doug Oberhelman said, adding he sees revenue rising between 10 and 20 percent this year.

That said, some of Asia’s big exporters have seen a slow start to 2012. Taiwan’s UMC, the world’s No.2 contract chipmaker, saw January sales fall 15.5 percent from a year earlier. Acer Inc, the world’s No.4 PC vendor by sales, reported an 18.5 percent drop in January sales from a year earlier.

“Our base case is that while growth is unlikely to charge ahead in the coming months, we have hit a bottom in the business cycle,” analysts at RBS said in a note.

The dual PMI surveys for China also revealed a divergence in export orders, with the government’s new export orders sub-index rising to 51.1 in February, the first expansion in four months and the highest reading since May 2011.

But the HSBC PMI export sub-index slid to an eight-month trough of 47.5, suggesting orders were shrinking.

It is not uncommon for the two to diverge. They use differing survey samples and the government survey is only partially seasonally adjusted — a vital distinction given the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday disruption to production cycles at the start of this year.

“In the past six years, the month after Chinese New Year always saw a rise of PMI readings. Therefore, PMI data in January and February should be taken with a grain of salt,” Ting Lu, China economist with Bank of America/Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong wrote in a note to clients.

China’s economy posted its weakest growth in 2-½ years in the December quarter. Growth for 2012 is widely expected to the weakest in a decade.

The twin data sets suggest the vast Chinese factory sector is slowly edging out of a trough and a hard economic landing can be avoided. However, that has yet to be secured, signalling to analysts that it is too early to think the government will ease back from providing the economy with modest support.

“Deteriorating external demand is adding more downside risks to growth in the absence of a strong comeback in domestic demand,” said Qu Hongbin, HSBC’s China economist.

“We expect the People’s Bank of China to step up policy easing efforts as inflation pressures recede.”

Source:www.uk.reuters.com

State-owned China Radio International said that the as-yet-unnamed airport would have nine runways and handle 5.5 million tonnes of freight a year, once it opens for business in October 2017.

The airport will be located in rural Daxing and cover almost 2,700ha, according to reports.

The transportation authority of Lang Fang, in North China’s Hebei province, said the airport would be built in the area between the junction of Beijing and Langfang city.

The Chinese capital is currently home to Beijing Capital International Airport and China United Airlines’ hub, Beijing Nanyuan Airport.

Reports suggest the latter will close once the new airport in Daxing commences operations.

Source:www.ifw-net.com

The analyst said exports rose by 2.4% in the final quarter, but were projected to drop by nearly the same amount in Q1.

“Austerity and trade growth do not mix,” said report author Ben Hackett, “2012 is not shaping up to be a good year – or at least the first half is not.”

He said austerity and the fiscal pressures of the euro on economically weaker countries had dragged the Eurozone back into “a so far mild” recession.

“The challenge will be to stem the slide, and it is by no means certain that this will be the case,” he added.

The North Europe Global Port Tracker is projecting European deepsea import growth for 2012 at below 3% and export growth nearer to 5%.

The latest forecast released by Hackett Associates and the Bremen Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL) indicates that at the six Northern Europe ports this year, incoming volumes will climb by around 3%, to 16.5 million teu, while outgoing volumes are anticipated to reach 17.8 million teu – a gain of about 5%.

Hackett said: “Containers flowing through North Europe’s ports are clearly linked to consumer spending and input to industrial production, and these flows react very quickly to changes in economic policies.

“The squeeze on disposable income is having its effects on consumption. That is the price of austerity.”

The forecast suggests the individual ports are expected to grow moderately, at rates of between 1% and 4.7% – with two exceptions: Zeebrugge may see a second consecutive year of decreasing volumes, due to market share losses throughout 2011; while Le Havre (pictured), in contrast, could see growth in the order of 9%.

“With demand weak, and capacity continuing to come on-stream with larger vessels entering service, it is hard to see how the carriers can push through their announced rate increases unless they begin to lay-up ships” said Hackett.

Source:www.ifw-net.com

GfK NOP said three of the five measures of consumer confidence saw increases in the month, with the remaining two measures decreasing.

The index measuring changes in personal finances during the last twelve months increased one point to -21 while a gauge of consumers’ personal situation in the coming year rose three points to -6.

The index of shoppers’ assessment of the economy over the previous 12 months fell 2 points to -60 whereas the measure for expectations for the  economy in the coming twelve months increased by four points to -29.

Consumer wariness for buying big ticket items was still in evidence with the measure of the climate for making major purchases dropping 5 points to -27.

Nick Moon, managing director of GfK NOP Social Research, expained: “While consumer confidence is still lower than it was a year ago, the Index staying where it was last month should be seen as a positive sign. February’s figures suggest this current increase is built on sturdier foundations than the short-term spike we saw last year, where the gain was wiped out over the following few months.

He continued: “The grounds for cautious optimism are found in the detail of the Index. While the climate for major purchases fell following the January sales, this has been offset by an improvement in consumer sentiment about the state of the economy and how people feel about their finances over the coming year. Next month’s results will determine whether we are seeing the beginnings of a sustained improvement in consumer confidence, or whether this is merely a steadying of the ship.”

source:www.theretailbulletin.com