British sports chain JD Sports enjoyed an enormous increase in turnover last year: it increased by no less than 49.2% to 4.7 billion pounds (5.4 billion euros). Gross profit growth was slightly lower, but amounted to more than a quarter.

French luxury icon families Arnault (LVMH) and Pinault (Kering) are springing to the aid of Notre-Dame in Paris, which has been damaged by fire. Together they have already donated 300 million euros for the reconstruction of the iconic cathedral.

Zalando is introducing shipping costs in Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom, following an earlier test in Italy. This seems to mark the end of the free era, even though the German company says there are no plans to further expand the measure.

Beerwulf, a Dutch speciality beers web shop, is expanding into five new countries: Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland join the five countries where the web shop is already active.

During the first three months of 2019, German fashion web shop Zalando has exceeded expectations and expects to have made a profit after tightening its return policy.

Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo is opening a Belgian head office in Brasschaat, near Antwerp. The retailer is leasing 530 sqm of office space in preparation for its Belgian expansion.

French sports chain Decathlon has opened a store of 4300 sqm in Emeryville, near San Francisco: for the French retailer this is a return to the United States after twelve years of absence.

German fashion chain bonprix, part of the Otto Group, has seen its turnover increase for the tenth year in succession. Eastern Europe has been particularly good for the company. Bonprix is also optimistic for the coming year.

Streetwear label Weekday has opened a new store of 400 sqm in Leuven. The H&M subsidiary has adapted its store concept to cater for the Belgian city's student population.

Employees have again gone on strike at four of Amazon’s German distribution centres. The German trade union Ver.di has been demanding higher wages and better labour conditions for years.

Over 30,000 staff at Stop & Shop, an American supermarket chain that belongs to Belgian-Dutch Ahold Delhaize, have been on strike since Thursday as they protest against the low wages and the rising health insurance premiums. The chain is planning to implement substantial cost-cutting measures.

For the first time in years, Apple is no longer number one in the list of the most innovative companies in the world as compiled by Boston Consulting Group. The new champion is Google, followed by Amazon. Both companies are heavily invested in artificial intelligence.  

Levi Strauss, better known as Levi's, will be opening another 100 stores, mostly in Europe and China. The brand is doing extremely well and sold 7% more products in the past quarter.

This week, Primark's biggest store opened in Birmingham. Besides the store's vast size, its integrated customer experience should turn it into a major success.

Amazon has thousands of employees who listen to users' recorded commands to improve the algorithms of voice assistant Alexa. Of course, they do get to hear a lot of sensitive material that way.

Unbeatable prices in a low-cost environment: that's the Carrefour Essentiel concept in a nutshell. The retailer is currently testing the new formula in Avignon as one of the possible avenues to save Carrefour's unprofitable hypermarkets.

British cosmetics company Lush has decided to close various social media accounts in the United Kingdom.

Amazon Go, Amazon's registerless stores, will be accepting cash in some form after all. The elitist flair of the shops has been heavily criticised and various cities and states in the US actually forbid cash-free stores.

Wessanen has been acquired by a syndicate of investors led by French group PAI Partners. The French were willing to spend 885 million euros on the Dutch natural nutrition specialist.

Tesco breathes a sigh of relief as the British supermarket group is well underway towards reaching its transformation goals. Turnover and profits both increased in the past financial year.

In the first quarter of 2019, meal order platform Takeaway.com processed 51% more orders, reaching a total of 31.1 million orders. The meal delivery service is currently investing in the German market.

Hema had a bumpy ride last year: comparable turnover dropped and losses increased due to the change in ownership. The department store chain is therefore making some bold choices: it's selling its bakeries and developing wholesale activities for the first time.

Decathlon will be opening a new warehouse for the Dutch market. Previously, orders in the Netherlands were delivered from Belgium, but the sports chain is changing that procedure. The warehouse will open in Tilburg.

A new study has shown that women in Vietnamese garment factories are systematically being sexually harassed and abused. A highly important factor in this situation are the working conditions in the factories.

Department store chain Debenhams is carrying a massive debt load, but still the chain has rejected Mike Ashley's ultimate plan to save it. That means the company is now under the control of the creditors.

At Tesco, real meat and meat substitutes will now be found side by side. The British supermarket chain has noticed that vegan is the biggest food trend of the decade, so they're launching a new meat counter where the two can be found next to each other.

Retailer Valora opened a registerless convenience store in Zurich last Friday. Store access and payment are both handled by an app.

Ailing fashion manufacturer Gerry Weber will close 120 stores and cut 454 jobs in Germany. In January, the company received a suspension of debt repayment.

Asos will both extend its return policy and make it stricter: from now on, customers will be able to send back their items 45 days after the initial purchase, but they won't get their money back. The British online fashion store will also respond more strongly to misuse.

Supermarket chain Albert Heijn is launching a podcast series in five parts on the origins and production of our food.

H&M is about to begin the sale of second-hand items: the fashion group will launch this new project on the Swedish website of subsidiary & Other Stories. Other brands and countries will follow.