Tesco Property Services, the online estate agency launched by Tesco last year, is to be sold to one of the sites fiercest critics, Spicerhaart. The site was established to undercut the sectors traditional players by offering a £199 do-it-yourself service, a service which Tesco later had to suspend. (more…)

Pendragon, the UK car dealership, has reported used car sales are up 2% on this time last year, although new car sales are down 4%. The 2% increase means that Pendragon expects full year results to come in towards the top end of analysts expectations. The credit crunch and falling house prices have not yet had a knock on effect to the care market, however it is unclear whether this will carry through the rest of the year. Therefore future trading conditions are said to be uncertain.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has alleged that tobacco companies and supermarkets have been colluding to fix the retail price of tobacco.  Most of the main players are named including Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda plus tobacco firms Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco, who between them own the major cigarette brands. (more…)

Tesco, The UK’s largest retailer, has seen profits increase by 11.8% to £2.846bn. Despite the credit crunch and downturn in retail, Tesco surprised analysts with these results, causing their shares to rise over 5.5% this morning. (more…)

Amidst worsening conditions on the high street (yes January and February was a blip), retailers are in negotiations with landlords to defer rental payments as in store spending slides.

Whilst landlords might try and play hardball, they are aware that an outright refusal could result in having no tenants at all. Indeed void space is growing as a percentage of income and rose to 6.5% in February 2008 from 5.9% at the same time last year.

John Lewis followed up its positive Christmas period trading performance with the news that last week saw the biggest sales drop in almost a year. A director blamed the downturn on the ‘unusually’ warm weather and not read too much into the figures as longer erm trading prospects remain positive.

The claims of warmer weather are supported by met office figures which show February temperatures being 1.2 degrees higher than average. Maybe John Lewis should expand its northern operations as its been cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey up here!

The Competition Commission is likely to suggest that supermarkets who own land just to stop rivals building a store close by, could be forced to sell to competitors. The idea being that this will create more competition in the local area.

This maybe true in terms of getting a Sainsbury to compete with a Tesco but it’s very unlikely that any new supermarkets will enter the market. Will the big four of Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s accounting for over 75% of the market, all that will happen is that these supermarkets will cement their position as dominant players in the market.

Also, where people shop largely depends on which stor is closest to their house. Even if a rival opens up two or three miles away, customers may have a change occassionally but are unlikely to travel the extra distance every week.