Other News In Brief

40% Of High Street Shops Could Close Within Five Years

A new report by Deloitte has claimed one in four high shops will be closed within five years as consumers chose online shopping instead.

High streets will be populated with coffee shops and internet kiosks, claim experts, as the boundaries between physical and virtual space become blurred.

The report says retailers will need to reduce the amount of property the have by 30/40% in order to stay competitive.

"The majority of UK retailers have simply got too many stores," said Silvia Rindone, a director in the retail consulting practice at Deloitte and author of the Store of the Future report. Total floor space has dropped in recent years, she noted, and this will continue as consumers shop more on the internet, with online sales forecast to reach £43bn by 2015, accounting for 14% of all retail sales. Some 22% of people did not buy their last item of clothing or accessories in store, and only 9% of customers want to see the full product range in shops.

Eco-Friendly Fur Adverts Banned

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a fur breeder’s ad campaign.

The magazine ad’s claimed that it is “"eco-friendly to wear fur" because it "lasts a lifetime" and "helps conservation", but a complaint that said these claims were misleading was upheld by the ASA and the ad have been banned.

Banning the ad, the ASA said the campaign, and supporting documents provided for the investigation, did not show that the fur trade would "cause no environmental damage".

"We considered that that headline claim would be understood as an absolute environmental claim," said the ASA. "Because we did not consider that we had seen sufficient evidence that the product would cause no environmental damage, taking account of the full life cycle of the product from manufacture to disposal, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead."

One Direction Make Chart History

UK pop group One Direction have made history by becoming the first British group to go straight to the top of the US Billboard chart.

The judges of the X Factor formed the five piece after they didn’t impress as solo artists.

Band member Harry Styles said reaching number one was a "dream come true" for the group.

"We simply cannot believe that we are number one in America. We want to thank each and every one of our fans in the US who bought our album and we would also like to thank the American public for being so supportive of us."