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According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK retail sales throughout January edged up 0.1%, the slowest rate of growth in last 6 months.
Sales by quantity grew 1.6% year-on-year, marking a significant slowdown on the 2.4% growth seen in January 2017. A boost in sports equipment along with games and toys in New Year’s resolutions, which saw sales grow by 10.9%.
It helped to partially offset the 0.9% drop in food sales, marking the 6th consecutive month of decline in a row as food prices continues to rise.
“Retail sales growth was broadly flat at the beginning of the New Year with the longer-term picture showing a continued slowdown in the sector,” ONS senior statistician Rhian Murphey said.
This could partly be attributed to a background of generally rising prices.
Sporting equipment growth games and toys being bought was offset by falling food sales when compared with the same month last

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate of inflation remained stayed at December’s 3%.
This came slightly above expectations that it would drop to 2.9% after December saw a relief from 3.1% inflation a month prior.
Inflation for food price has dropped 0.1% over the month due to the large falls in the cost of meat, oil, cheese, milk and eggs.
This has marked a welcome slow down following continually rising prices since 2016.
Inflation in January continued to be driven by clothing inflation, having seen a weaker drop than December at 3.7%.
“Economists have been expecting inflation to gradually fall back to the two per cent target over the coming year or so, starting today with a drop to 2.9 per cent,” Hargreaves Lansdown’s senior economist Ben Brettell said.
In fact the rate remained at 3%, with rise in prices driven by clothing, footwear and recreational goods/services. Inflati

When a user in the app finds a jar of Marmite, the player must answer whether they were a “born a lover” or “born a hater”. They are gifted randomly selected prize of either the gold plated jar, a personalised jar of Marmite or may be a sample of the famous spread.
This is an initiative and a part of Gene Project’s DNAFit campaign. It is a research project which has found that people genetically hate predisposed to loving or hating Marmite.
“AR provides a new way to interact with consumers,” Snatch head of marketing Kate Taylor Tett said.
The tech draws players immersive with a heightened level of interactivity. It was previously unavailable to smartphones. In order to increase their engagement with potential customers is a great way for the brands.
“Our collaboration with Marmite capitalises on this with a fun piece of activity for our users, as they actively seek out in-game jars on the map to trigger an AR experience, with one lucky winne

These adverts blend with the product catalogues with videos. Without leaving Instagram they allow users to buy items from the range.
It was first tested on Facebook, Instagram’s owner and reportedly it has produced promising results.
Earlier this week, Birchbox and Revolve both have launched shoppable “collection” campaigns.
Marking a concerted effort by social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to make the most of the million users who follow brands, with an estimated of 200 million followers on Istagram alone who follow fashion brands.
The ability to click through adverts to a brand’s website and make a purchase has already been offered by Instagram. This marks the first time purchasing which is available on its own platform.
Photo and video sharing app not only becoming but also increasingly important source of revenue for Facebook, it saw drop in users in North America for the first time ever last year.
“Instagram is a busi

New data from Ipsos Retail Performance reveals, the effects of heavy discounting on Black Friday extended through early January, shifting sales away from the traditionally solid trading period.
It is the ninth consecutive month of footfall volumes, and is likely to have encouraged the swathe of job cuts announced in the start of the year.
The most significantly affected were London and the South East, both seeing footfall and the North dropped 5.3%.
“This month’s footfall figures confirm that it has been a slow start to the retail year, though the news is diverse across the regions,” Ipsos director of retail intelligence Dr Tim Denison said.
It is been well documented market conditions and exceptionally tough last year, understandably the British public are remaining watchful as we start 2018.
It has built an imperative for retailers to review their business model and operate in a different order to survive.

The latest BRC-Nielsen Shop Price Index report shows, overall shop prices dropped by 0.5 % year-on-year in the last six days to January 8, though the rate of deflation showed from 0.6% a month earlier.
Despite “non-food prices creeping ever so slightly towards inflation”, the disparity between food and non-food prices continued to grow.
Excluding December, non-food deflation rates were the deepest since last March, but the 1.9% drop was still than 2.1% seen throughout December.
In mean time, food inflation edged up from 1.8% in December to 1.9% in January. It is the highest level of inflation marked since October.
The rise was driven by ambient food which saw prices jump 2.2%, up from 1.7% in December.
This was partially offset by fresh food, seeing inflation ease from 2% in December to 1.7%.
“There are reassuring signs for consumers from the fall in latest input price inflation, that the worst effects of sterling’s depreci