The retail sales in U. S. registered an unexpectedly surged in February as shoppers braved blizzards to visit the malls, signaling that consumers will massively add more to economic growth.

"The storms were apparently not quite as disruptive as anticipated," said Adam York, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, whose forecast for a 0.6 percent gain excluding autos was the highest of those surveyed.

Retail sales bounced back in February after a tough January on the High Street, figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) showed.

UK retail sales recovered month-on-month by 2.2 per cent in February after January's tough weather conditions that kept people away from the High Street, the British Retail Consortium said.

In January, like-for-like sales dropped more-than-expected 0.7 per cent due to cold weather and return of VAT to its pre-recession level of 17.5 per cent.

Clothing brand George is offering a 100-day returns policy to customers on it product range through Asda to outdo other rivals in the market.

The company competes with Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Primark and others in the clothing segment. It said that it has invested around 40m in the quality and durability of its products in the 18 months.

Waitrose boss Mark Price is determined to double sales and marketing share over the next decade as the supermarket chain is planning to open a number of new stores.

Waitrose's MD Mark Price aims to push sales up from £5 billion now to £10 billion and market share from 4.3 per cent to around 8 per cent by 2020.

The Group has plans to open new stores, build partnerships and introduce new products. Mark Price said that there is great potential for 23 stores in the United Arab Emirates.

High street retailer Marks & Spencer is going to broaden its ethical and environmental commitments to become the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015.

M&S has announced 80 new commitments under its 'Plan A' eco programme and said it would start implementing them within the coming five years.

The company said it would convert 50 per cent of its food, cloths and home items to ‘Plan A’, which was launched in 2007 and included 100 commitments in areas such as climate change and sustainable raw material.

Troubled retailer Blacks Leisure has postponed recovery measures after Mike Ashley's Sports Direct, which on Monday acquired 28.5 per cent stake in Blacks, threatened that it would not approve a planned £20 million fundraising.

Blacks Leisure wants to raise capital to renovate its old stores, open new stores and cancel its higher-interest bank facility of 7.5 million pounds. Blacks Leisure has plans to raise 22 million pounds but it requires 75 per cent of the shareholder vote to go on with its fundraising plans.

A two-week week campaign underlining the benefits of Fairtrade goods was designed to promote Fairtrade products. The foundation is working hard to urge potential customers to switch to Fairtrade products.

The staff emphasized on the advantages of using Fairtrade products compared to other products.

“The response from customers was fantastic. The event raised the profile of Fairtrade products”, remarked Store Manager Kevin Lomax.

The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index in UK has recorded the slowest annual growth rates in the history of the Index.

It reported that online shoppers spent £4.3bn in January 2010, a mere 5% more than the previous January.

While, the online sales registered a slip by 22% between December 2009 and January 2010, which online retail trade body the IMRG said was higher than the usual seasonal drop.

An aggressive swoop has been made by Mike Ashley's Sports Direct on a 29% stake in Blacks Leisure, the struggling and troubled retailer that would let the group vote against a rescue package which has been proposed by the Blacks board at the annual meeting on Wednesday.

The shares, in addition to an 11% stake in the third chain, JD Sports Fashion, were taken over in Octobers by the Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander administrators, the bank which is owned by Iceland's Kaupthing.

As has been shared by the owner Associated British Foods, popular clothing chain Primark has continued to perform strongly, recording a sales growth of 8% over the past six months.

Like-for-like sales, which excluded the impact of new stores, were mainly boosted by "exceptionally strong performance" across the company's 14 Spanish outlets. Overall, total sales were also quite strong, after the opening of as many as 5 new stores across UK, Germany, Portugal and Belgium.

As has been revealed by official figures shared, the explosive growth recorded by Fairtrade over the years managed to slow across UK during the past year, as shoppers thought before buying expensive ethical items in wake of the global recession.

As has been confirmed by the Fairtrade Foundation, overall, sales of the group hiked by 12% to about 799 Million Pounds, with tea and coffee faring well, but cotton falling.

The low rise in sales figures has come after a high recorded growth of 71% for the year 2007 and 45% in 2008.

British sales of fair trade products jumped 12 per cent to 800 million pounds during 2009, the Fairtrade Foundation said.

The organization said that the jump in the fair trade sales depicted that consumers had remained "staunchly loyal" previous year. It further added that conditions for producers in developing countries were "desperate" due to global economic slump.

British retail sales slumped steeper-than-expected 1.8 per cent in January from the previous month as icy weather kept shoppers away from the high street, figures released by the Office for National Statistics have revealed.

The ONS said it was the sharpest monthly fall in retail sales since February 2009.

However the sales volumes were up 0.9 per cent from the corresponding period of last year.

Official figures have revealed that for the month of January, retail sales across Britain managed to decline at their fastest monthly pace in almost one-and-a-half years, mainly on the back of the unusually cold and icy weather pushing down buying of household goods at the sharpest pace since 1988.

In view of its lowest quarterly growth in last 2 years, Asda is planning to split into smaller stores and open more non-food stores. This will help the company in cutting down the costs and gain pace.

"While we allowed ourselves to be too promotional in 2009, be in no doubt that Asda will return with force to our Every Day Low Prices model in 2010. That's what our customers need this year. The prospect of rising taxes and public sector job cuts could make for an extremely tough year for shoppers", said Andy Bond, the CEO.