Home Retail Group (HRG) on Thursday upgraded its full-year profit forecast, thanks to continued sales growth at its Argos chain.

Raising its full-year profit forecast for the second time since January, the group said that it expected to pocket £90 million in the soon-to-be-ended year.

The group's Argos chain reported an increase of 5.2 per cent in underlying sales over the eight-week to March 2. The increase in sales was mainly driven by a robust demand for tablet computers, fridges and freezers.

Waitrose is the best supermarket in the UK, while Tesco is the worst, according to a new survey by consumer watchdog Which?

The watchdog polled 11,000 consumers across the country, and found most respondents voting in favor of Waitrose, which received a customer score of 82 per cent.

Waitrose also received five-star ratings for the quality of its fresh products as well as for its customer service.

British retailers Tesco and Aldi have removed frozen beef products made by French supplier Comigel from sale because of "a labelling issue".

The two retailers withdrew frozen apaghetti bolognese and lasagne after the emergence of the latest alert over the origin of the meat.

Announcing its decision of withdrawing the beef products, a spokesperson for Aldi said, "Comigel has flagged concerns that the products do not conform to specification. They have been withdrawn immediately so that Aldi can conduct its own investigations into the factory concerned."

According to the statistics recently released by market research firm The NPD Group, 2011 witnessed a notable plunge of 8 percent year-on-year, from $18.4 billion to $17 million, in total US consumer spending on video games at retailers.

Despite the fact that the performance of video game content across retail and digital saw a boost due to alternative monetization strategies, the 8 percent drop in total US video games sales revenue during 2011 was a result of a decline in video game retail sales across hardware, software as well as accessories.

Going by the reports pertaining to the Black Friday shopping spree, big crowds of shoppers apparently went gaga for the doorbuster deals on LCD TVs; with Best Buy’s $200 sale for a 42-inch Sharp LCD TV being one of the hot favorites!

With the belief, substantiated by the market-watchers, that the search for the traditional Black Friday quarry, a low-cost HDTV, would seemingly be easier this time round, queues of enthusiastic shoppers could be seen outside the Best Buy building nearly one hour before the store’s midnight opening, which marked the beginning of Black Friday.

After registering an over-whelming growth in the last fiscal year, Waitrose, supermarket arm of the John Lewis Partnership, is all set to open two brand new stores in Scotland.

Last year Waitrose manage to acquire a hefty margin that allowed its staffs to take home a bonus worth nine weeks salary. The employee owned firm would soon be sharing a whooping 5.1 million pound worth of bonus with its 2900 partners. Each partner will get a payout of 1800 pounds.

While the figures were not as strong as the Wall Street had predicted and anticipated, the consumers continued with their spending and the sales went up a bit. Besides that, the fact that the festive season just ended also did its bit and reduced the demands.

As soon as the news came out, the stock market fell. The data was provided by the Commerce Department and they said that sales at the retailers and the restaurants just inched up by 0.3 per cent during the month.

Recently there have been a partnership talks between Starbucks Corp (SBUX. O) and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR. O). It has been informed by a source close to the talks. He had also sent some of the relevant data, sending Green Mountain shares surging.

Starbucks is the biggest coffee chain in the world. Now it is looking forward to be a major player in the innovative and fast-growing single-serve coffee segment as well.

Shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. traded below its previous close on Monday. The main reason of such decline is that J. P. Morgan has given a neutral rating ahead of the company's fourth-quarter financial results. J. P. Morgan analyst has predicted that the net earnings of the retailing giant may decline in the fourth quarter.

The shares of Wal-Mart, a portion of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, were down 1.6% to $54.80, making them one among the weakest players for the blue-chip barometer in a mixed session.

According to the British Retail Consortium, merchandisers have absorbed some of the impact of the VAT rise on prices although not completely. The consortium also warned that with the inflation still on the rise such action cannot last for an indefinite period.

JJB Sports is a struggling sports equipment retailer who is looking for some investors and finally received the news of takeover by its competitor JD Sports Fashion. The company has also tapped investors for £31.5m fundraising.

JJB Sports has announced that its funds can fall short by the end of March, if the group's trading cash flow or cash management actions fall below forecast. Releasing this news causes worry among investors and staff members. JJB Sports has 250 retail stores with 6300 staff employed across these stores.

US retail giant, Amazon will allow its users to return Amazon-derived gifts before the order has been shipped. The company has received a patent for an automated system that will allow gift exchange.

The site will soon feature an automated program that allows recipients to return items bought from the site even prior to being shipped. The system has been named as a “gift conversion” system in the patent application and let users set rules for gifts.

The organic mantra has been raging in the market region in case of Australia, Coles, a well renowned supermarket chain, has claimed to pull up on beef which has been spruced by growth hormones.

This proclamation has invited sent shockwaves in case of meat industry. Experts stated that increased beef prices as in case of more users seek for hormone-free meat, which takes up 50 percent of the beef traded in the country.

Farmers can easily employ hormone growth promotants (HGPs) to spruce up the muscle growth in cattle since 1979, which gained safety approval from health authorities.

Sales concerns have reportedly forced Carphone Warehouse to hack the price of the unlocked Google Nexus S smartphone by £119.

The Google Nexus S handset is now available for £430 (including delivery), only days after it was launched with a price tag of £549.

It is interesting to note here that the Nexus S costs £559.95 on pay- as-you-go deal at Vodafone from Carphone Warehouse. However, the cheapest Nexus S package costs just £540 at £30 a month on 18-month contract. This deal offers 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data.

UK supermarket chain Waitrose has rolled out an Android App that encourages users to cook delicious food stuffs by allowing them to download recipes from celebrity chefs Heston Blumenthal and Delia Smith.

Waitrose is making use of a special form of barcode, called Quick Response (QR) code, in a television advert. The code will appear at the end of the advert featuring Smith and Blumenthal.