Adidas is to stop producing almost 12.000 products - a quarter of its impressive 46.897 item catalogue. At the same time, the German sports retailer will expand its virtual showrooms worldwide.

Investment group Fung Brands from Hong Kong has acquired 80% of the shares of the French fashion company Sonia Rykiel for an undisclosed amount. The founding family keeps the remaining 20%, but cedes control to the Chinese group.

After Esprit announced its net profit had gone down 74%, the group's shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange remarkably went up 25%. Both Esprit itself and analysts call the result “better than expected” and being the result of “a deliberate strategy to reduce wholesale activities”.

Zalando has become the latest company in the long list of internet opportunities where DST Global invests in. The Russians have acquired 4% of the German shoe and fashion retailers for an undisclosed amount. Zalando has also signed a second agreement yesterday: one that will stop them from selling items containing fur.

Victoria's Secret has been in the centre of a storm of criticism since Bloomberg reported about its involvement in child labour in Burkina Faso. The luxury lingerie brand has some of its fair trade cotton picked by children, as the news agency reported. Parent company Limited Brands is “concerned” and promises to “fully investigate this matter”.

Spanish fashion group Inditex has witnessed a 10% turnover growth during the first three quarters of its financial year 2011, and 9.5% during the third quarter. Although the group did not release like-for-like figures, it is very likely that most of the growth comes from Inditex's fast expansion, adding over 350 new stores to its existing 5000+ store network.

Major growth in turnover and profit 

The retail giant from A Coruña has had an excellent sales record from February to October: turnover rose to €9.71 billion (+10%), EBITDA went up to €2.22 billion (+8%) and net profit reached €1.3 billion (+10%). Despite the difficult circumstances, like rocketing prices for raw materials, Inditex's margin stayed almost stable at 59.6% (down from 59.9%).

The only downside to the third quarter figures was that turnover grew 'only' 9.5%, slightly lower than the 11% in the first and second quarter. The Galician company blames the beautiful autumn in Europe, but says the sales have recovered again in the beginning of the fourth quarter. The holiday season will be hugely important for Inditex, as stocks are growing faster than sales can follow.

Online and offline expansion

Expansion remains paramount for the Spanish group: since February the group has opened 79 new stores in China alone and 358 worldwide. On top of that, Inditex also launched webshops for all its brands. The most remarkable offline achievement was the Rotterdam store of the Pull&Bear chain, a highly ecological design that is – according to the group – a landmark of sustainable and ecological retail.

At the end of October, Inditex had 5,402 stores in 78 countries and 106,251 employees. In the fourth quarter, the group is aiming to open another 142 stores (including a first one in Taiwan, South Africa and Azerbaijan).

Fashion chain Shoeby has ambitious plans for the future: conquering both the Netherlands and Belgium through new business structures. In its home market, the Dutch group wants to expand through shop-in-shops in department stores to add to its 225 own stores. For Belgium, the group wants to use franchising to raise the number of stores significantly.

Excellent results in Belgium and the Netherlands

Shoeby currently manages its seven stores in Belgium, but wants to convert them to franchising. The first store (in Geel) has already been converted, the first Belgian Shoeby franchisee being Marijke Van Noten. “Our results in Belgium and the Netherlands are excellent, owing to a fast rotation of collections, an intelligent marketing approach and excellent service. Another important factor, in the Netherlands, is a good cooperation with our franchise partners. We hope to be as successful with franchising in Belgium”, says Hans den Arend, Shoeby CFO.

The thirty year old chain also wants to expand in its home country, as the first shop-in-shop in department store V&D in Amstelveen, serving women and children, proves. Usually the chain is divided in Shoeby (for women and men) and Shoeby Kids, but the V&D shop-in-shop blurs this division.

Swedish fashion chain H&M has reported a sales rise of 3% in September 2011, compared to September 2010 and including taxes. The majority of that growth however was created by the opening of 252 stores: stores that have been open for over a year have suffered a 7% decrease in sales.

This is the worst like-for-like result for the Swedes this year, slightly worse than July's -6%. The last substantial like-for-like growth was registered in april, when sales went up 11%. H&M, currently running 2363 stores worldwide, has not released concrete turnover results or forecasts for the whole year.

British retailer House of Fraser is experimenting with a 'buy and collect' format, a place where customers can try on the clothes they ordered online before taking them home. The chain has two such stores so far, in Liverpool and Aberdeen.

Physical services for web customers

The choice for these cities came after a surge in online orders - especially from Liverpool, where the department store chain had no physical branch. From now on, customers can not only collect their orders at a convenient moment, they can also check if their size and colour are correct. If this is not the case, they can either change sizes if necessary or even get an instant refund.

The new 'buy and collect'-concept is aimed at cities where House of Fraser is not yet present with a 'real' store. The chain does not intend to turn the new branches into 'normal' stores, but still aims to give a “personal touch” there through personal style advice, places to sit and even touch screens so customers can shop online in the store itself – quite a unique feat. “This is a personal service”, says CEO John King. “We are bringing the services of a flagship store to the smaller high streets”.

Breaking the £100 million barrier

The group hopes this move will lift them over the £100 million milestone (€115 million) for web sales revenue in 2011 – that would be twice the amount of last year; though still just a small part of the chain's total turnover that was just over 1 billion pounds for 2010. 

House of Fraser is not the first chain to look for more “bricks” - even for their “clicks”-activities. The Belgian postal services bpost, the London branch of Amazon.co.uk and also Tesco are looking for, or have already realised, similar 'click and collect'-stores.