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Cash rich Vodafone has been tipped as a possible buyer of high street chain Phones4U and TalkTalk as it mulls how to spend its money made from selling its minority stakes in phone operators abroad.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Vodafone is one of a handful of companies eager to gets its hands on Phones4U which has around 473 shops in the UK, according to anonymous sources at the chain’s private equity owner, Providence Equity.

However, Vodafone may have to fight off competition from the likes of Dixons’ parent company DSG and Game Group if it is serious in its intentions. None of the potential buyers have confirmed their interest.

Phones4U is expected to make about £125m (before tax) on sales of about £800m this year, according to the newspaper. It was snapped up by its current owner, Providence in 2006, making its founder, John Caudwell a billionaire.

However, analysts at Liberum Capital are said to believe that Vodafone should plump for TalkTalk so it can offer its customers bundles of services like pay TV, broadband, home and mobile phones in future. TalkTalk is estimated to have a market value of around £1.25bn

source: channel.hexus.net

Supermarket chain Morrisons is finally to experiment with convenience stores and internet shopping, as new chief executive Dalton Philips looks for new sources of growth.

Mr Philips recently outlined his strategy for the group six months after taking over from Marc Bolland, who now runs retailer Marks & Spencer.

Morrison said that like-for-like sales, excluding VAT and fuel, were up 0.9% in the half year to August 1, a sharp slowing from the 7.8% posted the previous year. But underlying profit before tax soared 14% to £410 million on turnover of £8.1bn, up 9.1% from last year.

As more and more retailers provide an online service, it becomes ever increasingly apparent that shopping online is currently the best convenient way of shopping.

Tesco, the world’s No. 3 retailer, has launched a shopping app for the Apple iPhone, giving its customers the chance to join the latest shopping trend.

The supermarket firm said on Thursday the app, which is available as a free download, means Tesco customers can shop on the go for groceries via their iPhones.

Ocado OCDO.L, the recently-listed British online food retailer, has seen a rapid uptake of people ordering groceries through its iPhone app.

In May, clothing, homewares and food group Marks & Spencer became the first major British retailer to launch a website specifically designed for mobile phones.

source: reuters.com

The everyday fashions and hairstyles of ordinary women in the 1930′s from a unique film by Ivan Besse shot in the small South Dakota town of Britton in 1938.

Women of any generation are stylish, but this period epitomises glamour.

Retailers and shopping centres need to fight back against online sales sites which will almost always be able to beat them with huge discounts. Shopping centres and high street shops can deliver retail product faster into your hands than online – even with overnight delivery. However, various studies have shown that more and more people prefer to shop online than offline.

London has a lot of top lavish shops such as Harvey Nicks, which is on the corner of Knightsbridge and Sloane Square. It attracts a much younger crowd than Harrods; hence, its youngish, street-slang moniker. That said, shopping in this former linen shop tends to be a bit more expensive than in Harrods, owing, most likely to its well-curated mix of new-generation labels. Crazy-cool Rodarte is here, so is heir-to-the-sky-high-platform throne Charlotte Olympia, and even recent LFW debutante Erdem. This is definitely a place for highly mobile fashion fiends, with a just as moveable disposable income.

Primark: Marks & Spencer meets Top Shop meets Old Navy in this budget department store, where trendy pieces intermingle with the staples, for all age and gender ranges in the market. With a frenetically paced turnaround that churns out affordable, RTW versions of high-priced runway trends, Primark quickly sells out of whatever it is they release, not unlike the harried situation in Manila’s just-opened fast-fashion mecca, Forever 21.

Shopping in Selfridges is a spectacle as much as it is an experience. On the visual level, Selfridges stores are feats of both architecture and styling, what with their pillared façade on Oxford Street, and iconic window displays photographed by London-based Andrew Meredith

The customer loyalty card is a structured marketing genius idea that sees companies rewarding consumers for shopping with them and thereby encouraging a loyal buying behaviour.

If you tend to shop with a particular supermarket you should definitely get yourself a loyalty card, which may be referred to as a reward card, points card, advantage card, or club card. Having a loyalty card with the company you shop with allows you to earn a penny or two (sometimes more) on every pound that you spend. Having multiple cards for shopping at different high street shops to compare store prices is an even better idea.

This system of rewarding the consumer has been so successful with companies and consumers that it is almost expected that every business (retail in particular) would have some sort of a reward scheme for shopping with them.

Having a customer loyalty card is a good idea as saving a penny or two on every pound you spend, although minuscule, adds up pretty quickly. Just think of the amount you spend on food shopping on a weekly basis, and consider how much you could have saved. Your savings add up to a considerable discount whenever you decide to use the savings, which comes in handy during the Christmas season.

Winter is right round the corner and with that comes the best winter coats.

GMTV’s fashion guru Mark Heyes picks the best winter coats on the high street in the video below…

London shopping breaks are extremely popular with residents within the UK and also visitors from all over the world. Shopaholics enjoy the shopping breaks for bargains in the High Street stores or simply for sightseeing.

Having a shopping break over a long weekend is ideal to benefit from the multicultural facet that is London. You can be assured that spending time in London will be an enjoyable time…

Whilst kids tend to not consider the new school year until it is right round the corner, parents usually have the back to school shopping trips that they’ll have to make in the back of their minds. Whether you are one who does your ‘back to school shopping’ early or late in the summer, it is a must to have new school uniform(s) on your shopping list.

Shopping for new school uniforms to start off the new school year is a must! We all know how quickly kids grow. If you do not equip them with new uniforms for the first day of their new school year you are pretty much setting them up to be the laughing stock of the year.

Purchasing new school uniforms does not necessarily mean spending a fortune, however, especially if you have a number of children to make happy – and we all know how difficult that can be!

Retailers always, without fail, have back to school deals on offer. Marks and Spencer for example have fantastic deals on offer that begin pretty much when the summer starts for parents who like to get their shopping done early.

When it comes to back to school offers, you can rest assured that there’ll be plenty of deals for you to choose from, so much so that you should compare store prices to ensure you purchase the best deal on offer.