UK shoppers inspired by health food trends on social media ‘lift retail sales’
Shoppers inspired by health food trends on social media helped lift retail sales in January, easing pressure on high-street stores after a gloomy festive period.Barclays said credit and debit card spending grew 1.9% year on year in January – the highest upsurge since March 2024.The turnaround came after a 10.7% rise in discretionary spending on health and beauty products – the strongest growth rate for the sector in more than three years – which the bank said was because of the increasing sway gained by influencers over what consumers choose to buy.
While trading for most retailers remained tough, popular health trends, given a boost by the recommendations of social media stars, have proved to be a driving force behind online and brick-and-mortar sales.One in five consumers (19%) said they had recently been influenced by social media content to make a health or beauty purchase, rising to 40% for gen Z, the bank said.An even higher proportion – two-fifths – of consumers (41%) said they had recently bought products or services in response to popular wellness trends.Food supplements, vitamins and high-protein food ranges were among the trends on social media that most commonly translated into higher sales.Cinemas and entertainment venues also put in a strong performance, up 8.
1% year on year in January, said the bank.Cinema revenues alone rose 15.1% as family friendly films Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 lured in viewers, Barclays said.A separate survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) found that sales of food and non-food increased in January, although the lobby group said the better sales at the start of the year failed to reverse a poor run for retailers during the “golden quarter” from October to December.Businesses have complained that uncertainty about the economy, high interest rates and fears of further rises in prices have dampened consumer spending and hit profits.
Profits are expected to take another knock in April when higher employment taxes announced in Rachel Reeves’s October budget and a rise in the minimum wage take effect.Marks & Spencer was the most recent retailer to argue that the sector would be badly affected by the extra costs hitting employers.The sector has warned that the higher costs could lead to job losses and higher prices.The BRC said there was a return to more normal trading in the three months to January, but cautioned it could be short-lived.Total retail sales increased by 2.
6% year on year in January, against a growth rate of 1.2% in January 2024.Last month the BRC said sales rose by just 0.4% in the three months to December on the same period in the previous year.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionThe sales of computers, phones and other household items jumped in January, turning around a 2.
8% annual decline last January in non-food purchases into a 2.5% annual gain last month.Food shops also made gains, pushing up sales by 2.8% over the last year, although this marked a slowdown from a 6.1% annual rise to January 2024.
Barclays said its measure of essential spending showed a modest 0,1% increase in January, although this reversed four consecutive months of decline,Jack Meaning, the chief UK economist at Barclays, said the likelihood of lower interest rates this year would bolster consumer spending,But a forecast by the Bank of England that inflation will reach a fresh peak of 3,7% by the autumn was likely to have the opposite effect.
“We expect bank rate to fall to 3.5% [from 4.5% now] before the end of the year, which should give a further boost to consumers who will once again feel the pinch as inflation rises in the coming months, albeit it temporarily.”
‘Mass theft’: Thousands of artists call for AI art auction to be cancelled
Thousands of artists are urging the auction house Christie’s to cancel a sale of art created with artificial intelligence, claiming the technology behind the works is committing “mass theft”.The Augmented Intelligence auction has been described by Christie’s as the first AI-dedicated sale by a major auctioneer and features 20 lots with prices ranging from $10,000 to $250,000 for works by artists including Refik Anadol and the late AI art pioneer Harold Cohen.A letter calling for the auction to be scrapped has received 3,000 signatures, including from Karla Ortiz and Kelly McKernan, who are suing AI companies over claims that the firms’ image generation tools have used their work without permission.The letter says: “Many of the artworks you plan to auction were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a licence. These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them
Major outage hits TPG, Vodafone, iiNet, Internode and Kogan customers amid wild NSW weather
One of Australia’s largest internet providers has been hit with a major outage, leaving thousands businesses and individuals without broadband access.In a statement on Monday evening, TPG Telecom said it was working to resolve a “technical issue”, which was causing disruption to its fixed broadband services for consumer and business customers.“This issue is affecting broadband services for TPG, Vodafone, iiNet, Internode and Kogan fixed internet customers,” they said.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email“Our technical teams have identified the issue and are working to restore services as quickly as possible for all customers.“We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused
AI race must be led by ‘western, liberal, democratic’ countries, says UK minister
The artificial intelligence race must be led by “western, liberal, democratic” countries, said the UK technology secretary in a veiled warning over China’s role in the contest, before a global AI summit in Paris.Peter Kyle spoke as political leaders and tech company bosses gather in France, and after the emergence of a new Chinese force in AI, DeepSeek, rattled US investors and upended assumptions about Silicon Valley’s leadership in the technology.The tech minister told the Guardian he would use the summit to explain why Britain should be at the forefront of developing AI.As well as allowing global leaders and companies to “come together and learn from each other”, the summit would give the UK a chance to show why it had the “skills and the scientific pedigree” that were “going to be essential if western, liberal, democratic countries are to remain at the forefront of this critical technology”, he said.Kyle added that AI would have an impact on every part of the economy and society, including national security and defence
From Dogecoin to $Trump: everything you need know about the wild world of meme coins
Are they the same as crypto, why has the US president launched one, and who’s really coining it in? Here’s a complete guide to the latest digital money maniaThree days before his inauguration as US president, Donald Trump made an unusual move. He launched $Trump, a so-called meme coin that fans and speculators could buy in the hopes it would gain value. Initially, $Trump soared from a value of $7 to $75 per coin in a day, according to crypto price-tracking website CoinMarketCap. Two days later, it dropped to about $40 – just as incoming first lady Melania Trump launched her own meme coin, $Melania. Even the pastor at Trump’s inauguration ceremony, Lorenzo Sewell, got swept up in the meme coin frenzy, promoting a $Lorenzo version the same afternoon
We didn’t click ‘consent’ on any gambling website. So how did Facebook know where we’d been?
A Facebook user logs into their account and is bombarded with dozens of gambling ads. The promotions for online casinos and betting sites offer free spins, “bet boosts”, discounts and bonuses.But the person has never placed a bet or played a game on a gambling site before – let alone consented to being targeted. How can that happen?The Observer conducted an experiment to find out how potential gambling customers are being tracked, profiled and targeted online.To do this, we visited 150 gambling websites run by companies with licences to operate in the UK
AI is developing fast, but regulators must be faster | Letters
The recent open letter regarding AI consciousness on which you report (AI systems could be ‘caused to suffer’ if consciousness achieved, says research, 3 February) highlights a genuine moral problem: if we create conscious AI (whether deliberately or inadvertently) then we would have a duty not to cause it to suffer. What the letter fails to do, however, is to capture what a big “if” this is.Some promising theories of consciousness do indeed open the door to AI consciousness. But other equally promising theories suggest that being conscious requires being an organism. Although we can look for indicators of consciousness in AI, it is very difficult – perhaps impossible – to know whether an AI is actually conscious or merely presenting the outward signs of consciousness
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