The annual end-of-year party of the retail industry in the Benelux is back after it was forced to take a break. Mark 25 November in your diary and order your tickets now: booking early means getting a discount! Curious about the first names?

Procter & Gamble recorded higher sales but slightly lower profits in the first quarter of its broken financial year. The FMCG giant again warns of rising raw materials prices.

Danone was able to increase its turnover in the third quarter thanks to price increases. Like nearly the entire industry, the French dairy giant faces higher raw material costs, which it is passing on to customers.

Through its investment vehicle Korys, the Colruyt family will take a stake in Dutch bike builder Santos Bikes.

For the first time, Tesco has opened a store where customers can do their shopping without scanning items or queueing at checkout. The store is located in London.

Due to the Covid crisis and - to a lesser extent - Wibra's bankruptcy in Belgium, the company recorded a somewhat declining turnover in 2020. However, they realised a slightly higher profit.

The Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is coming to the Netherlands... with a brick-and-mortar store in Leiden. Under the name Ochama - to prevent any confusion with JD Sports - the world's third-largest e-tailer will open its doors on November 11th.

In the UK, Amazon has drawn the ire of smaller retailers by brandishing sign-up bonuses of up to 3,000 pounds (3,550 euros) for new workers as the busy Christmas period approaches.

Selfridges is negotiating with Qatari investors over a possible sale for four billion pounds (€4.7 billion), which would see the luxury department store change hands for the first time in almost 20 years.

EuroCommerce, the business federation of the European retail and wholesale sector, chose an internal candidate to succeed director-general Christian Verschueren: Christel Delberghe has worked for the organisation for 20 years.

The logistical problems at Carrefour Belgium continue, even though the strike at Kuehne+Nagel's distribution centre in Nivelles has been ended a week ago. The unions are afraid the problem is structural, and point to the trucker shortage.

Dozens of Lidl stores in Belgium are closed due to a strike for the third day this week and on Saturday, the unions even hope to keep all 309 of them closed. The problem is the workload, and the fact that management has postponed reconciliation talks to Monday.

If you think you often see stores of similar chains group together, you may be right. The right neighbour can triple your sales, new research indicates. To many Belgian stores, the favourite neighbour seems to be Dutch drugstore chain Kruidvat.

Ikea has seen its global sales rise by 6.6 % in the 2020-2021 broken financial year. There was a growth of 5.8 % on the Belgian market, but in the Dutch branch of the home furnishing chain suffered from the prolonged lockdown.

Hema plans on focusing on its own stores and online channels within the Benelux and France even more than before. After withdrawing from the United Kingdom and Spain, the retailer is also discontinuing its collaboration with Dutch Wehkamp and French group Casino.

French luxury group LVMH has recorded 44.2 billion euros in sales in the first nine months of the year, 46 % more than in the same period last year and another new record. However, the explosive growth slowed down somewhat in the past three months.

In the struggle to get shoppers to city centre stores, Mechelen wants to bring shoppers from parking lot to city centre by boat, in a scenic route over the river Dijle. The Belgian city already has one conventional bus shuttle for shoppers, with a second line starting in November.

Belgian shoe store chain Torfs says its e-commerce is just as profitable as the sales made in physical stores. There is, therefore, no reason to move the e-distribution centre abroad, CEO Wouter Torfs says.

A Belgian organisation for independent entrepreneurs calls for a Europe-wide ban on free returns. Unizo says the ban will be beneficial to both the climate and small webshops: the latter feel forced to follow global e-commerce giants who can offer free returns more easily due to scale benefits.

Belgian shoe chain Torfs is launching a brand new concept for its city stores: larger, with more space for fashion and a great deal of attention for sustainability. The most striking element, however, is the strong focus on the youngest customers.

More than a hundred Belgian Lidl stores are closed today due to a strike. With the strike, the unions protest against the high workload and the planned end to a reinforcement scheme.

Dutch e-tailer Coolblue has delayed the IPO it had announced for this month. The current conditions on the stock exchange are too uncertain - but are recent reports about a drop in profit margin to blame as well?

It is a collaboration between two powerhouses: streaming service Netflix is going to sell merchandise from various popular TV series through the world's largest retailer, Walmart. Is it a coincidence that the announcement comes at a time when Netflix is enjoying massive success with its hit series Squid Game?

Sales by third parties continue to gain importance at Dutch retailer Bol.com's marketplace. The number of active customers also continues to rise, as does the number of products on offer.

The owner of Dutch fashion chain Scotch & Soda, Sun Capital, has converted a shareholder loan of 200 million euros into shares. The investment company is also supplying the fashion chain with 15 million euros in fresh capital.

The Geek Corners that Belgian hypermarket chain Cora introduced two years ago in its Belgian stores, are becoming increasingly popular. This year alone, they grew by 60 %. Unsurprisingly, the concept is being expanded to France.

Tile store chain Impermo is accelerating its expansion: the Belgian company will open four new showrooms in the next six months, including its first branch in the Netherlands.

Dutch bicycle manufacturer Pon.Bike is taking over its American competitor Dorel Sports to form, according to themselves, the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world. The merger teams up both consumer brands (like Pon's Gazelle and Dorel's Schwinn) and specialised race bikes (Cervélo and Cannondale).

France is taking drastic measures against plastic waste: as of next year, dozens of fruits and vegetables can no longer be wrapped in plastic.

On the eve of the United Nations Biodiversity Summit, the CEOs of several major companies, including H&M and Unilever, are calling on governments to take meaningful actions towards protecting ecosystems.