Retail blog

Graham’s blog, Soult’s Retail View, is considered essential reading by many retail executives, journalists and store owners.

Taking a wide-ranging look at the UK retail industry – often from a North East perspective – the blog’s areas of interest include retail history, department stores, supermarkets and new retailers, usually illustrated with Graham’s original photographs.

Following the collapse of Woolworths in 2008, Graham has made it a particular mission to visit and track as many of the locations as possible, recording details of the new occupiers and using the material gathered as a ‘window’ on the changing high street. To date, he has visited all 33 of the North East stores that closed in 2008-09, as well as more than 150 ex-Woolies sites elsewhere.

Since its launch in July 2009, the blog has accrued more than 300,000 page views, and, in December 2009, global media intelligence company Cision ranked Soult’s Retail View at #2 in its list of the UK’s top ten retail blogs.

Graham’s latest blog posts

• “The high street needs to adapt and evolve”: Retailer Q&A with Havens department store
• Sports Direct heads tenant list for Gateshead’s Trinity Square
• “Women are looking for stylish, flattering classic styles online”: Retailer Q&A with Lucza
• Jack Wills “agrees terms” on Newcastle Monument Mall store
• HMV needs to know its own strength
• “Creating new ideas and selling them is what I enjoy”: Retailer Q&A with Premurosa
• Hilco has rescued HMV, but now the hard work really starts
• Pick ‘n’ mixed grill: the ex-Woolworths that are now Wetherspoons
• Hunting for long-gone Woolies stores in Harrow and Sudbury Hill
• Clas Ohlson launches ‘Club Clas’ loyalty scheme in Sweden – with UK expected to follow

[Visit Soult's Retail View]