Trouble on the high street: The winners and losers of the Christmas battle

Just how bad was Christmas for Britain’s shops? Retailers sounded the alarm early when advent brought a string of warnings about a terrible November, but this week we started to find out what the crucial festive period really brought.

A rush of results arrived, as everyone from the big supermarkets to M&S, Debenhams and John Lewis updated on Christmas sales.

The bar had been set low, but it turned out to be not quite so bad as thought – with a few winners and a bunch of losers who escaped the drubbing feared.

On this week’s podcast, This is Money’s retail expert Emily Hardy, joins Simon Lambert and Georgie Frost to sift through the figures and look at who did well and who didn’t.

The team also look at the crucial question of whether retailers with decent sales will turn those into profit, or whether getting items off the shelves at a discount cost them dear?

Also on the agenda is what’s causing the malaise. Is it the internet, a lack of quality, or simply Britain hitting peak stuff? Simon has a theory based on sales, Amazon, people buying presents later and being a bit more discerning.

Away from the high street, we also discuss how to get a new job in 2019 and find out about the man whose expensive £4,000 wasted romantic trip after a break-up spurred him on to create Transfer Travel - the ‘eBay for unwanted holidays’.