The comical owners of the Daily Torygraph, brothers Sir Dave and Fred Barclay, have snapped up the Woolworths and Ladybird clothes brands and plan to re-launch it as an on-line only retailer. While it means the name wont disappear, many of the 30,000 staff jobs still will, but it will be good news to suppliers of Woolies products – especially own label items. This comes as no great surprise to me: I was always puzzled as to why Woolies didn’t have a better online presence to begin with. A trip to last week’s Retail Career Forum confirmed that online strength is crucial to a safe retail career. We saw it with our pals at asos, and last week we heard the River Island are about to shake up the online arena. New employer videos from the fair will be posted up as soon as it stops snowing.

Matalan – its always been one of our favourite videos on the site – and its set to stay thanks to new proof that they were one of the best-performing High Street retailers over the Christmas with sale up 6% across its 203 stores. So while Next and M&S are wondering what went wrong, Matalan keep growing turnover, claiming that shoppers are enjoying seeking out a bargain. With sales up at Primark too, they might have a point. Founding boss John Hargreaves opened the first Matalan store in Preston in 1985 and the firm remains in private hands. A real contender then along the lines of asos for a good career break into fashion and retail. You go girls. And boys.

A good start to 2009 from my two favourite brands: Dandy outfitter Liberty has stuck two sartorial fingers up at expectations with Christmas sales the best on record thanks to tourists coming over and taking advantage of the pound. Waitrose too saw a 41% surge in trading. Waitrose’s owner, John Lewis (who also saw sales increase), said 23 December was the supermarket chain’s busiest ever trading day. Financial data provider Experian said on Wednesday that visits to UK High Streets in the last week of December were up 12.8% compared with the same seven days in 2007. So there you go: if there’s one thing for certain, its uncertainty. Nobody knows nothing.

They’re back: last time we reported online clothes monger Asos’ bumper sales it was a bit weird in the current climate. Now it’s the stuff of the X-fliles. While everyone else is firing and crying, Asos has seen sales more than double by 107%, with close to a million customers. Strong sales of cheap threads for the Christmas party season showing no end to the good times.  My favourites, high-shine leggings are also very popular: Asos sold 4,000 over the last four weeks. It recently launched ASOSRed, a discounted designer clearance page, and a maternity range. Half of those million customers are under 25 and, so don’t face mortgages and utility bills, so are more resilient to economic downturns. Asos plans to push into childrenswear in February, as well as offering more premium designer brands alongside Karen Millen, Warehouse and Whistles. It is also looking to expand overseas. We caught up with them at a retail fair recently – everything you need to know about landing a graduate job with them is in this video. I’ll help you catch him, Clarice.

The Wolverhampton kebab chef who kept working despite corpse of dead employee on sofa in his shop, admits 12 counts of breeching hygiene standards. A career in reverse: a 33 year-old woman from Wisconsin enrolled in her local high school, pretending to be her 15-year old daughter, in order to fulfill a longtime dream of becoming a cheerleader. She did make the squad before she was found out. Australian Wool Innovation who introduced, for the Japanese executives’ market, a washable business suit that can be cleaned in an ordinary shower and will dry overnight, virtually wrinkle-free. They admit it can even be worn in the shower. And Tommy Patterson. The 41 year-old while on holiday in Florida decided to do some impromptu shoplifting at a Wal-Mart but, according to police, but was easy to catch in the ensuing foot chase as he was still wearing flip-flops from the beach.