Sarah Mitchell 
Chancellor John Healey has raised the small business rates relief threshold for shops, pubs and cafés in England from £12,000 to £18,000 from April 2027, taking around 70,000 more firms out of rates. Larger shops get a two-year real-terms freeze, funded partly by making online marketplaces collect VAT from bigger UK sellers.
Evri and Yodel rank worst for parcel customer service for a fourth year, while Amazon and FedEx lead, in Ofcom’s 2026 survey. Overall satisfaction fell to 75% and the regulator is weighing tougher rules.
Almost a kilometre of Oxford Street between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street closes to traffic from Monday 26 October, with buses diverted from Sunday evening. Here is what changes for shoppers, retailers and deliveries, and what the 2025 trial says about footfall.
Kaufland is likely to name a tenth country storefront by June 2027 and open it by October 2027, with Belgium the base case. A record Dutch launch, a 21-country rival and EU customs changes all point the same way.
US containerized import volumes likely trough in March 2027 rather than April, with the month printing below 1.95 million TEU. Three dated signals point the same way: the Global Port Tracker’s opposing forecast revisions, an escalating transpacific blank-sailing programme, and a summer pull-forward already landed in inventory.
Signals point to WebMCP missing a default-on Chrome ship at version 157 on November 3, 2026, with the origin trial extended or the milestone pushed into early 2027 instead. The likely consequence: holiday agent checkout settles on server-side platform rails, not the browser API.
A US import ban on most Canadian packaged alcohol, several dairy inputs and motorcycles above 800 cc took effect on September 29, 2026 under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. CBP is now rejecting entries on the covered tariff lines outright, leaving retailers and direct-to-consumer sellers with a sourcing problem rather than a duty bill.
Cumulative certified IEEPA tariff refunds likely plateau at roughly $145bn to $155bn of the $166bn collected, leaving $11bn to $21bn permanently unclaimed by 31 December 2027. CBP intake has decelerated about 87%, and Phase 3 turns the remaining claims into litigation.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer hosts G20 trade ministers in Milwaukee from September 29 to October 1, with forced labor, the Most-Favored-Nation principle, food trade and excess capacity on the agenda. India’s Piyush Goyal attends as the bilateral trade deal nears completion at an 18% reciprocal tariff base.
US holiday retail sales per retail-trade employee likely set a series record this season, rising roughly 4% or more year over year. Three signals from late August and September 2026 point that way, and Census and BLS data will settle it by mid-February 2027.