Don’t miss a pitch opportunity, get in touch with these retail journalists and have your story told.
Is your client opening a store or has a new, innovative product? Have you spotted a trend in your industry? Or are you working in e-commerce and online shopping? If you are ready to run your PR campaign for your retail brand, read our top tips to land a successful pitch.
Sending emails
Pay attention to the subject line. It is important due to the volume of emails received. When writing your email, make sure the content is digestible, gets to the point quickly and sectioned with bullet points.
Visuals
Don’t forget to include some photos or footage. Strong imagery boosts your chances of securing coverage. Titles always look for pictures for the paper, and an original image can often be a key to securing a copy.
Follow up
Sometimes you don’t hear back from the journalists. It’s perfectly normal as they receive many emails in their inboxes, so it takes some time to go through all of them. You can send a follow-up email – once. If they still haven’t come back to you, you can safely assure they’re not interested.
Journalists covering everything retail, from e-commerce to industry news.
Here’s our list of the UK’s top retail journalists whom you can contact to cover your story. You can also follow them on social media to see what interests them and what they talk about.
Note: Information is accurate for the date the blog was posted in January 2023. Journalists might change outlets and sectors in the future.
Longform Editor, Financial Times
Jonathan has been a journalist for 25 years, a long-standing correspondent at the Financial Times. He covers business-related news within the retail industry, such as high street news, retail sales figures for UK retailers, and UK supermarkets. Lately covering store openings, expansions and retailer profits.
Chief Business Correspondent, The Sunday Times
Sam joined the title as a Retail Reporter in 2018 where he now covers stories and news about retail and commercial property, he is not interested in general pitches though. The Times and The Sunday Times find it important to include geographical diversity and they have also increased the coverage of businesses run by under-represented groups.
Ellie has been working at the Evening Standard since 2018. She focuses on all shoppable content including beauty, fashion, homeware, tech and fitness but exclusives and trialling products pre-launch in particular. She is always on the hunt for interview opportunities and is interested in working with freelancers and influencers to write product reviews and create video content. Her latest headlines include product reviews and shopping ideas.
Retail Correspondent,The Guardian
Sarah started at The Guardian/Observer in 2014 as a Business reporter. She covers all retailers and key consumer product stories. Sarah shares her role with Zoe Wood. She’s interested writing about retail companies, consumer goods and workers’ rights.
Political Correspondent, The Independent
Archie joined the Daily Mail in 2021 as a Business Correspondent. He is focusing on retail and hospitality, latly reporting on supermarket and sales news.
Business Reporter, Daily Mail
Since 2021, Emily has been covering everything retail, hospitality and property at CityAM as a Business Reporter. She recently reported on the news within the fashion and beverage retail industry.
Henry has been appointed Deputy Business Editor at PA Media. He focuses on retail and leisure sectors, as well as general business news. Lately he wrote articles about the news in the clothing and food retail sectors.
Ashley started as Business Editor at The Sun reporting on the large consumer news stories within the front section as well as just the City page . She was previously Retail and M&A Editor for The Times.
Leanne Bayley
Digital Lifestyle and Commerce Director, HELLO!
Leanne was promoted to Digital Lifestyle and Commerce Director at HELLO in 2022. She was previously Digital Head of Lifestyle at the magazine. Leanne is interested in new beauty product launches, fashion drops, sale news and the latest must-have item going viral on Instagram and TikTok. Manages a team of commerce writers with a focus on major shopping events throughout the year.
We’ve spoken to Leanne about e-commerce, the changes in articles and more. Watch the first 5 minutes here.
Roberta Schroeder
Senior Ecommerce Editor (Luxury), Hearst Magazines UK
Roberta was appointed the Senior Ecommerce Editor (Luxury) of hearst UK in 2021. She works across Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire and ELLE to grow their beauty and grooming ecommerce offering, as well as assisting on wider editorial ecommerce strategy and content across all Hearst UK’s brands. She is interested in hearing via email about beauty and grooming news and launches.
Roberta joined us for our webinar, take a sneak peek here.
