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 Welcome
to the Centre for Retail Research Website.
The Centre for Retail Research started as a university research
group and has been independent since 1997.
Professor Joshua Bamfield is the Centre's Director.
We are pleased to note that there have now been 50 million Google-searches
for the "Centre for Retail Research". We expect to punch above our
weight.
Business Areas
The Centre for Retail Research gives businesses and public-sector
organisations authoritative research and consultancy on retail,
financial services, service industries and training.
Retail Forecast
Shopping for Christmas: We're very pleased
to note that our Christmas retail forecast (in cooperation with
Kelkoo) was correct. All the results have yet to be compiled, but
this is the fourth Christmas in a row that we got it right - a 'reasonable'
though not massive increase in sales through shops and a large jump
in online sales - based on a consumer survey in early September
and some industrial economics in late September. Deloitte and Verdict
both forecast a fall in Christmas sales. The full report analyses
the key trends in Christmas shopping; shoppers' spending on presents,
decorations, food and drink; attitudes towards shopping in high-street
stores and online; and the likely share of online shopping this
Christmas.
More information here >>>
We are, of course, experts on e-commerce and have followed the
development of online retailers since 1991.
The Centre keeps a close eye on the worrying news about the retail
sector.In 2009, 37 retailers responsible for 26,688 employees and
6,536 stores had gone into administration. Key retailers included
Borders, Thirst Quench, Stylo, Principles, Sofa Workshop, Allied
Carpets, Viyella, and Barratts. For further information press
here .
To see what companies have problems press
here and our forecast for 2009-2010 , excitingly subtitled 'Hard
Pounding Gentlemen', press
here.
The Centre's work >
Retail, Financial and Other Services and Training
 Although
we are best known for our research on crime and fraud, at least
half our work deals with retail/services research, shopping issues,
SMEs, training, and diversity. You can go directly to our latest
research, our retail
forecast for 2009 & 2010 or our other briefings about topics
such as retail failures,
RFID, and the progress
of ethnic-minority retail businesses in Reports
and Briefings.
The Economics of Retail
We have been producing retail forecasts for some years. We have
particular skills in the economics of recession. Professor Bamfield
studied 'Currency and Credit' with Sir Roy Harrod (Keynes' right-hand
man at Bretton Woods and the IMF) at Oxford University, specialising
in Central Bank policy in the 1930s. Some might say that could be
relevant for the world we face now?
Crime and Fraud
Our research and consultancy about retail
crime+fraud, particularly the Global
Theft Barometer and our work on Internal
fraud in Financial Services and Retail can be seen at Reports
and Briefings.
The Centre's research is widely quoted
Much of our commissioned work is confidential to our clients, but
the Centre's research has been extensively reported in Britain and
abroad in programmes like the BBC's Today Programme, BBC 24, Channel
4 News, ITV, BBC News, Sky and TV stations in The Netherlands, Czech
Republic, and Germany. Major newspapers that have also carried our
reports and interviews include Frankfurter Allgemeine, The Times,
Financial Times, The Economist, Evening Standard (UK) The Financial
Daily/ Financieele Dagblad (Amsterdam), Täglicher Marktbe (Germany),
Expansion (Spain), The Irish Independent, Irish Post, the Times
of India, Washington Times, and International Herald Tribune.
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