2007 was a year of farewells. Retail said goodbye to three of its big characters. The untimely deaths of Dame Anita Roddick, Richard Ratner and Alison Richards robbed the industry of three people who, in their own ways, epitomised the spirit which makes our industry unique.

It was farewell too to a host of other industry leaders, with a remarkable number of chiefs in the top companies moving on – John Clare from DSGi, Richard Baker from Alliance Boots, and the resignation of Gerry Murphy from Kingfisher.

We said goodbye to long-standing brands too. Kwik Save and Music Zone were no surprise, but the sale and renaming of Virgin marks the end – in retail at least – of one of the 20th century’s most iconic brands.

It is often said that retail is a fast-moving industry, but 2007 proved the rule. The year started with the prospect of giant private equity deals dominating the agenda and ended with even small ones being hard to put together.

Some extraordinary deals did happen – Boots’ £11.1 billion sale to KKR and Stefano Pessina was the biggest private equity deal in Europe to date. But others failed to materialise – two bids for Sainsbury’s came to nothing. The second of these, from the State of Qatar, was killed by the credit crunch, which has rendered such big leveraged deals a non-starter.

From a sales point of view, 2007 was a year of two halves. The first half was better than feared and sales held up as the forecast impact of interest rate rises was kept at bay.

But the storm clouds of the wettest summer in living memory heralded tougher times. The weather over the second half of the year was consistently unhelpful, with summer floods giving way to an unseasonably mild early autumn. Fashion and DIY retailers were worst hit, but even Tesco had a bad quarter.

But as the autumn wore on astute retailers realised it wasn’t all about the weather. It became increasingly clear that the concerns about consumer spending were finally coming home to roost; fashion and furniture retailers in particular approached the end of the year with trepidation.

As ever, though, the picture was mixed. It was yet another good year for the major supermarkets, as they performed strongly and the Competition Commission grocery inquiry produced relatively benign initial findings. It was also the year when Stuart Rose allowed himself to mention recovery at Marks & Spencer. Online retail continued to grow like wildfire.

2008 will inevitably spell major change at some of the other biggest retailers. Few would be surprised if new broom John Browett shifted strategy for DSGi’s international business, while Murphy’s successor at Kingfisher has a mountain to climb. Sports Direct, Woolworths and Debenhams are three more retailers with more questions than answers.

The gloomy economic outlook means it is unlikely that anyone will find 2008 easy. But, more than ever, the gap between the handful of stars and the mass of stragglers is getting bigger. Retail is never easy, but it’s about to get a whole lot harder.