Today in retail: Selfridges kick-starts Christmas

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Today, Selfridges got the festive season started earlier than ever before with the launch of its Christmas shop – 147 days before the big day.

The golden quarter is hotly anticipated by retailers across the piece. But for Selfridges, which attracts bumper tourist spend during the summer, Christmas is of particular importance.

So, on the last day of July, the upmarket department store retailer brought Father Christmas into its Oxford Street branch and introduced customers to its Yuletide decoration and gift collections. Its festive food ranges are set to follow at the end of this week.

Selfridges said it decided to start Christmas earlier than ever before to cater for super-organised shoppers and tourists who snap up traditional festive products when in the UK on their summer holidays.

Although retailers are quite accustomed to planning for Christmas a year or more in advance, and often host Christmas in July events, some traditionalists will be horrified by Christmas decorations and mince pies going on sale a whole five months early.

Elsewhere today, One Stop franchise boss Andrew King has left the Tesco-owned convenience business after four and a half years.

Quote of the day

“Our One Stop business remains a key part of our retail offer and our franchise business has gone from strength to strength since 2014. We’re currently making a series of changes to our service model across Tesco to further simplify our business, and our One Stop franchises will now be supported by John Miller.”

A Tesco spokesman commenting on the future of One Stop following Andrew King’s departure