2001: EPA orders Walmart to pay $1 million fine for Clean Walter violations in Texas, Oklahoma and Massachusetts. ibid.
The worker is given a fake pay slip … We really work day and night in order to get the wage of less than $3 a day. ibid. Chinese Walmart worker
Bangladesh: forced to work from eight in the morning to ten o’clock at night … trapped in utter misery … sucking down standards all around the world. ibid. critic
Britain’s battling tough economic times. The value of the pound in our pockets has plummeted since the Brexit vote. So bagging a bargain is more important than ever. But for one of Britain’s biggest discounters, Poundland has trouble in store. Trouble in Poundland, ITV 2017
‘Trotter’s Independent – it’s one massive market stall.’ ibid.
Poundland is Britain’s biggest single-price retailer. ibid.
Statistics show that 50% of all employees killed on the job worked in convenience stores. Here, what appears to be a simple purchase turns into a horrifying act of barbarism. Banned from Television, 1998
Seductive adverts, our favourite underpants, a store that defines the middle class. Marks & Spencer is an iconic British brand. What started as a penny bazaar grew to become the first British retailer to make over a billion pounds. But all is not well at our favourite shop. Profits are not what they used to be. The retailer’s closing 100 stores between now and 2022. The Trouble With M&S, Channel 5 2018
Welcome to Marks & Spencer: selling everything from pants to puddings. It’s been revolutionising the British high street for a hundred and thirty-five years. Its history tells the tale of British shopping and how it’s evolved: from the clothes we buy to the level of service we expect. It’s reflected our changing tastes in foods. And our changing approach to food ads. M&S: Past Its Sell-By Date, Channel 5 2019
With almost 1,000 stores in the UK, 81,000 employees and a turnover of £10 billion, M&S truly is a high street giant. At its heart the flagship Marble Arch store. ibid.
M&S dominates the UK underwear market … One in four men wears M&S pants. ibid.
This obsession with accurate sizing would continue through the decades. ibid.
When M&S led, other retailers followed. ibid.
The St Michael’s brand would last for 72 years. ibid.
More than a billion Percy Pigs have been sold. ibid.
‘They called it Food Porn.’ ibid. Stuart Rose, former CEO
M&S may have finally won the takeover battle but they were losing the retail war and more and more Britons began to shop online. ibid.
Tesco values slave labour, tax-dodging, GM foods, government infiltration: Tesco pay children as little as seven pence an hour in third-world countries. Wolvoman80, Fuck the System I, Youtube 1.53.27
Oxford Street, London: Britain’s busiest high street. With over two hundred stores taking billions of pounds a year. Three million visitors come here every week, making it one of the liveliest streets in the country. It’s home to an army of workers, shop assistants, cleaners, police, and underground staff, working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to make sure it’s always open for business. Oxford Street 24/7 aka Inside Oxford Street I, Channel 5 2018
Bringing in the shoppers are four underground tube stations. The busiest right in the middle is Oxford Circus, with three tube lines handling over eighty million people a year. ibid.
Police are back on the trail of some of the Street’s most persistent criminals. ibid.
It’s all about the workers who keep Oxford Street up and running … The night bus inspectors also have their work cut out. Oxford Street 24/7 aka Inside Oxford Street II
70% of shop thefts are committed by drug addicts. ibid.
Oxford Street swelters as record temperatures hit London. 30,000 party people are hot to trot as they celebrate Pride. And police and the council launch an operation to rescue the street’s dogs. Oxford Street 24/7 aka Inside Oxford Street III
‘Pride is the third biggest event London hosts.’ ibid. St John ambulance chap
30,000 in the parade alone. ibid.
Christmas is coming to Oxford Street. The lights are going up on Britain’s busiest high street. With more than a million extra visitors expected each week things don’t always go smoothly. Oxford Street 24/7 at Christmas aka Oxford Street IV
The last customers are leaving but work on the Street never stops. ibid.
Selfridges’ flagship store: founded in 1909 it’s the second largest shop in the UK after Harrods. ibid.
But the shops will only be closed for one day because now they’ll be getting ready for the next big event: the January sales. ibid.
Oxford Circus, central London: The busiest shopping streets in Britain. 220 million people come here every year. Tucked away is one of London’s oldest department stores. Established 138 years ago, Liberty was once an emporium of luxury goods from the East; in more recent years the shop struggles to make a profit and to stay cutting edge. An American was brought in to make the shop competitive again. His challenge is to preserve the shop’s heritage while attracting new customers. Liberty of London I, W 2018
25 new sales staff have been recruited for the Christmas shop. ibid.
One of the few remaining haberdashery departments in London. ibid.
For 125 years the shop was owned by the Liberty family; it’s now run by a private equity firm. ibid.
‘We get a lot of queens in here.’ Liberty of London II, assistant
40% of the shop’s sales are made on the three fashion floors. ibid.
5 million shoppers come through these doors each year. ibid.
The build-up to Christmas … Liberty is gearing up for what they hope will be their biggest Christmas yet … ‘In the six weeks leading up to Christmas we have to take 20% of our annual sales.’ Liberty of London III
‘We have to run the Christmas shop like a military operation.’ ibid. sales dude
100 years ago this month the son of an East London immigrant family [Jack Cohen] opened his first market stall. A century later almost a third of us shop at his store. At its height one in every seven pounds spent passed through its tills. It’s been a century of ups and occasional downs. Inside Tesco: Britain’s Biggest Supermarket, Channel 5 2019
Piled it high and sold it cheap across London. ibid.
Back in the ’60s Tesco tried to attract customers by offering Green Shield stamps. ibid.
There are 35,000 different lines to choose from. ibid.
1In the last five years Aldi and Lidl have doubled their joint share of the market to over 13%. ibid.
Kwik Save was a no-frills supermarket opening new stores in places Tesco is having to save them. ibid.
In 2007 Tesco launched a new chain of stores in the US called Fresh n Easy, complete with glossy TV ads. ibid.
Theresa, would you come up please and help a customer [Bubbles] with crabs who needs some crab ointment. Trailer Park Boys s8e6: Friends with the Benedicts, pharmacy dude over tannoy
Lidl and Aldi, the German supermarkets who targeted British shoppers by slashing prices and terrifying the opposition … stacking the shelves with own-brand goods, and springing surprises in the aisles. Once Britons were snobbish but now they flock to the tills. Aldi vs Lidl: Supermarket Wars, Channel 5 2019
The cost of a bag was nothing compared to the savings on the products. ibid.
It’s the largest online retailer in the world and has revolutionised the way we shop. It offers everything from best-selling books to children’s toys, and a third of all online purchases in Britain now go through Amazon. Dispatches: The Secrets of Amazon, Channel 4 2019
We ask whether the company is putting profit before other priorities, revealing the dangerous toys for sale on the site, uncovering the enormous amount of money the company makes with our personal data … What is the hidden cost behind Amazon’s unstoppable growth? ibid.
An incredibly tough place to work. We’re going undercover … Even going to the loo can land staff in trouble. ibid.
Amazon’s revenue in the UK is approximately eleven billion. Yet it paid two hundred and twenty million in tax last year. That’s about 2%. ibid.
Debenhams, Toys R Us, Cath Cidston, many more brands all felled, all with something else in common … They were all owned by a little known group of investors who made millions. While thousands of retail workers lost their jobs. As surviving shops prepare to open next month Dispatches asks who’s really to blame for the demise of our high street. Dispatches: The High Street Cash Crisis, Channel 4 2021