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Chemicals and the Economy

Tesco says ‘Today is the New Normal’

The world’s leading retailers have been extremely reliable leading indicators for the chemical industry, since the Great Recession began. They were the first, back in July 2007, to highlight the major changes underway in consumer markets. Tesco, the world’s 3rd largest retailer, warned then that they were changing their focus away from more affluent shoppers […]

Retailers still see challenging times ahead

The blog is a great believer in the forecasting power of the major retailers. The top 3 global companies, Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco all identified a change in consumer buying patterns as early as July 2007, when Tesco warned that “coming down the road is a tougher time“. Worryingly, their most recent comments give no […]

Carrefour CEO sees “challenging” times ahead

France’s Carrefour is the world’s 2nd largest retailer, with sales of €86bn ($117bn). Reporting 2009 results, CEO Lars Oloffson echoed Wal-Mart’s CEO Mike Duke, saying he saw “challenging” times ahead. And he added that “I don’t see any improvement in the short term in the economic environment. That means very clearly that we have to […]

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