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EDITORIAL Will an Amazon Tax revive the High Street – or is that Sports Direct’s job?

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While life and the news cycle usually both slow down in the summer – giving InternetRetailing readers the chance to catch up on some stories that may have slipped past during the year.

This week we are focusing on Mobile & Crosschannel and will be turning out attention to Operations & Logistics and Strategy & Innovation over the coming weeks.

Today we report on the news that will allegedly transform the way retailers trade as the UK government says it might impose a new tax on online retailers.

The powers that be want to “ensure that taxation is fair between businesses doing business the traditional way and those doing business online”, retail behemoths such as Amazon have come under fire for their reportedly low UK bills compared to other retailers.

But, will this move add more fairness to the way retailers should be taxed based on their revenues? And will it give a knock-on-effect on improving the health of the high street, putting an end to the new retail normality of closures and ’phoenix-like resurrection’ of retailers?

Or is that going to be the role of Mike Ashley and Sports Direct? His 11th hour rescue of House of Fraser now leaves us wondering what will happen next? Will HoF become the ’Harrods of High Street’, or will data segmentation allow the group to target both high end and sports wear at the same customers? 

One thing is for sure, the next few months are going to be interesting to watch on the High Street.

Meanwhile, online, Amazon’s Prime Day again makes the headline with its ’halo effect’ making shoppers spend more but smarter. We also turn our attention to the rise of the cybercrime as two-thirds of UK consumers consider fraud as “inevitable” when shopping online.

Today’s guest comment comes from Salah Kamel who considers four critical points before investing in artificial intelligence (AI).

We continue our focus on mobile and crosschannel as we deliver four practical approaches on this theme, making the most out of mobile in-store and the Internet of Things (IoT).   

RetailCraft podcast

Find out more about the first two episodes of InternetRetailing’s RetailCraft podcasts featuring Heals and the Rug Company.

RetailCraft 01 – David Kohn of Heals – “probably the most sceptical man in the industry”? Surely not!

RetailCraft 02 – Sarah Stagg of The Rug Company and the 2018 IREU Top500

Webinars

Find out more about upcoming InternetRetailing webinars and register for free on the InternetRetailing webinar page. You can also catch up with past webinars on the page.

 

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