Filed under: retail
10 storiesThe archive, indexed. Every story carries its tags at the foot of the page.
Hoplark filed for bankruptcy after raising more than $25m
The hop-water maker rode a booming non-alcoholic category. Distribution costs, tight shelf space and weak retail demand arrived anyway.
Protein-bite brand started at 60 reaches $2m and 13,000 shops
Theresa Burnley spent 16 years making other people's food. She started Circ in 2023 as a side project and now sells through Starbucks and Walmart.
Pippa Murray swapped a London flat for a shed and won £120,000
She entered a competition whose prize was rent-free accommodation in a garden shed. Eleven years on, Pip & Nut says 1.6 million British households buy its peanut butter every year.
Next overturns £30m equal pay ruling on market forces
The Employment Appeal Tribunal accepted that Next could pay warehouse staff more than shop workers because warehouse roles were harder to fill. More than 3,500 claimants, mainly women, had been in line for a share of more than £30m.
A shop's 'No Influencers' sign became a 600-unit product
Four Winds Craft Guild in Nantucket put up a sign telling influencers to stay away, got shouted at for it, and then started selling handmade copies of the sign. The lesson is cheaper to borrow than to earn.
Sisters raise £660,500 for dressing brand TOSS
Grace and Sophie Devlin have pulled in SFC Capital, SyndicateRoom's angel fund and a row of food founders. The money goes on awareness, shelf space and new formats.
Pickle sparkling water sells out and lands six-month Ocado exclusive
YEW Drink put brine, dill and cucumber in a can, ran out of it, and talked a national grocer into six exclusive months at £1.69.
Bristol coffee shop swaps paper stamp cards for IndiStamp pilot
A husband-and-wife team has launched a loyalty app that will only take independent businesses. Bristol pilot partners get the paid tier free for life.
Vivien Wong quit an £80,000 job to sell mochi to cinemas
Little Moons went viral on TikTok during the pandemic. Its co-founder says the company had already been running for a decade, and spent five of those years nowhere near a supermarket shelf.
Edgify raises $9m to cut shop losses at the till
The London company runs its loss-prevention models on hardware already sitting in the shop. Total funding now stands at $25m.