High Street
The high street remains a vital battleground for pet retailers, balancing in-person service with growing digital competition. Pet Gazette covers the role of independent pet shops, regional chains, and national retailers on UK high streets — reporting on shop openings and closures, rent pressures, footfall trends, and evolving customer expectations. We also examine localised marketing strategies, product merchandising, and how high street stores adapt to omni-channel retail. For wholesalers and suppliers, this tag offers visibility into the challenges and opportunities facing brick-and-mortar stockists across towns and cities.
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Jan- 2018 -18 JanuaryRetailers
Pets at Home closes all of its Barkers stores
Pets at Home has confirmed the closure of all seven of its Barkers stores across the country by the end of March. Pets at Home opened seven Barkers stores across the country in Bristol, Surrey, West Yorkshire, Marlow, London, Kent and Wilmslow. The shops were dog-centric outlets, offering toys, accessories,…
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15 JanuaryRetailers
High street sees sharpest footfall decline in four years
New figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Springboard show footfall in the month of December suffered its sharpest decline since March 2013. Total UK retail footfall fell by 3.5% compared with December 2016, while the high street saw a sharper drop, down by 4.6%. Shopping centres suffered a…
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12 JanuaryIndustry News
Shoppers make 80% of retail purchases online
Online shoppers in the UK make 80% of their retail purchases online, up from 74%, according to a new report. The Royal Mail’s ‘Delivery Matters’ report found that the proportion of money being spent online has increased year on year. The average online shopper spends £40 each month on clothes…
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Dec- 2017 -19 DecemberRetailers
90% of retailers to ‘struggle’ with upcoming accounting rules
Britain’s retailers look set to emerge as the most exposed to new lease commitments, according to analysis by Aptitude Software, a global financial software specialist. The firm predicts that 90% of UK high street retailers will struggle to comply with the impending lease accounting standards (IFRS 16) which come into…
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Nov- 2017 -27 NovemberFeatures
How safe is your job?
Despite a three percent drop in employment, Pet Gazette discovers that the retail sector is still going strong “The pace of job reductions in the retail industry is gathering steam,” says British Retail Consortium (BRC) chief executive Helen Dickinson OBE. In October, the BRC reported a record reduction in retail…
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14 NovemberCurrent Affairs
Pets boost small business sales
In the run up to Small Business Saturday (taking place on 2 December), American Express research reveals how a ‘shop dog’ can boost sales for small business owners. Having a pet on the payroll can boost the income of small shops across the UK as a whole by as much…
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13 NovemberCurrent Affairs
Fewer closures, more openings for high street retail
There were more high street retail businesses opening and fewer closing in the first half of 2017, according to a report from the Local Data Company. The data, which studied the top 500 British town centres, found that 2,564 stores closed in the first six months of the year whereas…
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Oct- 2017 -23 OctoberCurrent Affairs
Independent High Street retailers boom while national chains fall
Data released recently by The Local Data Company (LDC) and British Independent Retailers Association (bira) shows that traditional independent shops opened significantly more shops than in the same period last year. National chains continued to see a fall. Independents account for 65 percent of all retail and leisure units in Great Britain.…
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4 OctoberProducts
Pet bed manufacturer supports independent retailers
Eurostitch Ltd has shown its support for the independent pet trade in the UK. The West Yorkshire-based manufacturer of the Lucky Pet bed range has invested in a new website. Pet owners can place an online order for a Lucky Pet product which can then be collected from their local pet…
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3 OctoberCurrent Affairs
Shopping on the high street ‘part of the festive experience’, claims customers
Almost a third (30 percent) of British consumers are worried about Christmas disappearing from the high street, and as a result just seven percent will do all of their Christmas shopping online this year, new research has found. The rise of online shopping has hit the high street hard over recent years, but research carried…
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