Christmas may seem like a distant memory, but retailers won’t forget it in a hurry: it was the worst on the UK high street since 2008. Marks & Spencer and Debenhams saw sales fall, while the likes of specialist retailer Halfords and discounter B&M also struggled. Even that most Christmassy of stores, John Lewis, is forecasting a dive in profits after discounting to keep up with competitors. Put simply, the British high street is a horror story just now. Debenhams, founded in 1778, has seen its share price drop more than 90% over the past year. HMV has gone into administration for the second time in six years and is seeking a buyer.

Of course this has been happening for years, but as you will see below the numbers have dramatically escalated during the early portion of 2019. Our landscape is already littered with countless numbers of hollowed out stores and abandoned malls, and it is about to get a whole lot worse. Retailers were hoping that a strong holiday season would turn things around, but that didn’t happen. In fact, we just learned that retail sales in the United States suffered “their biggest drop in more than nine years” during the month...

Grocery chain Kroger Co. rolled out a first-party mobile payments solution on Wednesday as it continues to rebuff third-party solutions like Apple's Apple Pay. Dubbed Kroger Pay, the app-based solution generates single use QR codes on a customer's device, which are subsequently scanned by a Kroger cashier upon checkout. The service allows users to associate any major credit or debit card with the digital wallet.

Sales at retailers fizzled in December and posted the biggest decline in nine years in a worrisome sign for the U.S. economy, according to a long-delayed government report. Retail sales sank 1.2% in December, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday. It’s the largest drop since September 2009, a few months after the end of the Great Recession.

Face it: The wedding cake is rarely the best part the reception. Sure, it's pretty to look at and the ceremonial cutting is fun and all, but if you're really hoping for it to take center stage, you should probably go for something a bit non-traditional like, say, a tiered version that's actually just a beautifully stacked series of cheese wheels. If that sort of dairy bonanza seems like a good fit for you and your crowd, may we direct you to this remarkable five-tier version currently available at Costco.

Angela Ahrendts, the former Burberry chief hired by Apple five years ago to oversee its stores, said Tuesday that she will leave the company in April. The departure is an unusual move for a top executive at Apple, which is facing retail challenges as sales in China have dropped and iPhone sales have turned sluggish. Ms. Ahrendts, 58, was one of Apple’s most prominent hires when the Silicon Valley company lured her from Burberry with an initial $73 million pay package in 2014.

For at least a year, a growing chorus of financial analysts and CFOs has predicted that a recession is going to hit the US sooner than later—perhaps even by the end of 2019. Now Deloitte, a global accounting and auditing firm, has chimed in to say that the worrying signals are growing. To determine how retailers can survive the likely turmoil, the firm studied the dot-com bust that started in 1999 and the great recession that came along in 2007, as well as how individual retailers emerged from them. Its new report concludes that brands need to prepare for a period of rapid change, and they must be ready to invest...

College students and survivalists rejoice: Costco is selling a 27-pound tub of mac-and-cheese with a shelf life of two decades for $89.99. Unfortunately it's not available in stores. ("A 27-pound bucket of macaroni and cheese?" said one employee over the phone. "No.") It's also intermittently out of stock on Costco.com. As of mid-afternoon on Friday, it's sold out.

The clock appears to be ticking for one of America's venerable retail companies. Sears, the 125-year-old iconic department store known for its popular Christmas shopping catalog and its equally iconic Kmart chain, could be down to the final hours, CNBC reported Thursday afternoon. With more than 68,000 workers between the two brands, Sears Holdings' last chance at survival comes down to a possible $4.6 billion proposal by Chairman Eddie Lampert.

Retail is having its best holiday shopping season in six years, according to early data tracking consumers' purchases. Sales in the U.S. from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve were up 5.1 percent to more than $850 billion, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which monitors spending both in stores and online via all forms of payment. Mastercard also said online sales during that time frame were up 19.1 percent from a year ago, in line with earlier reports that showed robust growth in e-commerce this holiday season.

As traditional department stores have been losing share to discounters, fast-fashion retailers and off-price chains for decades, several upstarts are taking a stab at breathing new life into the model.

Motasim leaves a scathing review of the PayPal Extras MasterCard claiming it was difficult reaching their customer service.

Apple is currently sending out emails to Apple Music subscribers with promo codes to buy a brand new HomePod with a significant discount. So far, UK customers are receiving codes worth £50, bringing the price of a HomePod down to £269 direct from Apple. A £50 discount beats average eBay prices. Some third-party outlets are selling HomePod as low as $250 and we’re seeing it for even less at 9to5Toys, so the deal isn’t unprecedented, but represents a significant discount from Apple itself. It’s not yet clear if Apple will also be sending out these emails to other regions like the US.

With General Motors set to end production of its Chevrolet Cruze compact car next year, another high-volume, entry-level option will be crossed off American car buyers' shopping lists. On top of similar moves by Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the demise of the Cruze adds to growing affordability challenges in the new-vehicle market.

Tom Eburne and his wife, Peggy, are self-checkout virgins. They refuse to use the machines, determined to keep cashiers employed. "We will resist as long as we can," said Tom Eburne, who lives in Chilliwack, B.C. "I think any job loss is a step backwards." A new Dalhousie University grocery shopping study found that out of 1,053 Canadians surveyed in October, slightly more than one-quarter said they never use self-checkout at the grocery store — not even for a small purchase.

If you bought Fallout 76 then not only will you have received a desperately disappointing, buggy, borderline broken game – you’ll also have paid over the odds for it. Just a week after release – and one gigantic, pointless patch later – Bethesda has decided to discount the title heavily, slapping all of its fans in the face in the process.

Like Sears, J.C. Penney hasn't been profitable since 2010. It posted $3.9 billion in losses since then and has been closing stores in an an attempt to stanch the bleeding. And like Sears, it has run up debt while its credit rating has sunk deep into junk territory. The longtime department store rivals have made similar missteps and could share a similar fate. Like Sears, J.C. Penney hasn’t been profitable since 2010. It posted $3.9 billion in losses since then and has been closing stores in an an attempt to stanch the bleeding.

Google revealed its Black Friday 2018 deals today for the Google Store and they kick off on November 16 with a Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL that gets you a second phone for 50% off, once you buy the first. They’ve also got cash discounts on Pixel 3 and 3 XL, plus deals on Google Home Hub, Mini, regular Home, and Max, Pixelbook, Chromecast, and Nest products, just like we expected.

Consumer goods companies, emboldened by a strong U.S. economy, are rolling out price increases on everyday products and groceries after several years of haggling with big retailers that needed cheaper products to attract customers.

Profit-sharing plans for rank-and-file employees are vanishing as corporate America has adopted a “shareholders above all else” approach.