Food
Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo has achieved a 16.5 % turnover growth this semester, increasing its market share to 21.6 %. Expansion towards Belgium is next on the agenda.
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Belgian beer giant AB InBev has decided to cancel the IPO of its Asian branch: demand for the stock was expected to disappoint due to its launch price, which American investors thought was too high. The supposedly biggest FMCG flotation of all time therefore is no more.
General
Activists and Amazon employees in the United States and Germany are using the two-day discount event Prime Day to protest against several aspects of the e-commerce giant.
Frozen potato brand Lutosa is changing its name to Belviva, with which it wants to emphasise its Belgian identity... and avoid legal problems.
Fashion
Fast Retailing, the Japanese parent company of clothing brand Uniqlo, has seen continued turnover growth in the third quarter. International activities have performed particularly well.
The French government has introduced a tax aimed at large online companies like Amazon. The United Kingdom is looking to follow suit, despite Trump's reprisal threats.
Cosmetics
Pop star Lady Gaga will launch her own beauty brand, called Haus Laboratories, exclusively for Amazon. Starting from September, the label will be for sale in nine countries.
Electronics
Google employees listen to, and analyse in detail, recordings made by its Home speakers and the Assistant app on smartphones. And all that without clear notification, let alone permission, a Belgian news show claims.
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DIY
The shareholders of DIY group Kingfisher (which includes such chains as B&Q and Brico Dépôt) are protesting the severance payment of departing CEO Véronique Laury, who would be receiving 552,000 pounds (610,000 euros).
Valérie Chapoulaud-Floquet, the CEO of French liquor group Rémy Cointreau, will be leaving her position at the end of the year, as the group announced "with sadness".
PepsiCo has outperformed expectations with a 2.2 % organic turnover growth. Especially a growing sparkling water department pushed the FMCG producer forward on its way to achieving its own predictions.
Superdry is sinking deep: the British fashion label has now reached a record loss of more than one hundred million euros, while turnover remains stagnant.
Two Dutch retail organisations have issued a joint report that says non-European webstores such as AliExpress are not in compliance with local regulations. Detailhandel Nederland and Thuiswinkel.org therefore think such shops have a competitive advantage that is deemed unfair.
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Levi Strauss saw its first quarter on the stock market end on a negative note: there was less profit than envisioned, to the investors' disappointment. Still, sales of the jeans brand went up in every market.
Amazon's new return policy in the United States allows customers to drop their products without package or labels in thousands of sales points, nationwide and free of charge.
Samsung is suffering from the trade war between the United States and China: for the third quarter in a row, the smartphone producer predicts lower profits. Fortunately, the decrease is less dramatic than initially feared.
Illycaffè is looking to expand by opening more of its own coffee bars. To that end, the Italian coffee manufacturer is looking for a partner with retail experience. This could spell good news for Nestlé or Douwe Egberts, both of which have had their eye on their Italian competitor for some time.
The two branches of Aldi, Nord and Süd, are going to unify their private labels. By 2020, customers of both chains will only be able to buy the same brands, spelling the end of brands like Topstar and Milsani.
Amazon just celebrated its 25th anniversary. In that short time, Jeff Bezos' creation changed retail forever. But more than that: the company has made an indelible mark on the global economy. Is the world getting divided between Team East and Team West?
Tmall, the online platform for Western Alibaba brands, is updating the look of its virtual shops. The new concept, Flagship Store 2.0, offers more personalisation, brand experience and augmented reality.
FNG, known from Brantano and Miss Etam, is taking over the Swedish Ellos Group, a leading e-commerce player in fashion and interior decoration. A sum of 229 million euros is involved.
Lidl and Leclerc keep growing their market share in the hyper-competitive French food market, which has barely seen any growth as a whole. Most of their success comes at the cost of Carrefour, Casino and Auchan, which are all in a state of decline.
Property
German internet company Zalando is about to build a new mega-distribution centre in Bleiswijk in the Netherlands. The project will yield 1500 jobs and involves an investment of 200 million euros.
Walmart is setting aside 8 billion yuan (1 billion euros) in the coming decade to improve the logistics of the retailer in China. The American colossus has made its ambitions in the Middle Kingdom quite clear.
After a questionable quarter, Hema is hoping to find greener pastures in the US and Canada. The Dutch department store company will be collaborating with Walmart, no less.
French sneaker retailer Courir is coming to Belgium with its own stores. The first two outlets will be opened in Brussels, more precisely in City 2 and at the Elsensesteenweg.
Aldi Nord is building a new head office in Essen. After the modernisation of the German outlets, the company now wants to grow in the rest of Europe.
How do you combine digitisation, hyper-personalisation and wellness? Shiseido puts them together, blending them into a new, luxurious subscription formula.
Online is growing by 30 to 40% at Ahold Delhaize, says Frans Muller, who has been the CEO of the merger group for a year now. The advantage of the supermarkets compared to online giants such as Amazon or Alibaba? Food is local, according to Muller.
On July 19th, AB InBev's Asian branch will be listed on the Hongkong stock market. The beer giant offers 1.6 billion shares at a rate of 40 to 47 Hongkong dollars (4.5 to 5.3 euros) per share.
Amazon intends to create as many as 1,800 jobs in France, spread out across twenty sites of the e-commerce giant throughout the country. France is Amazon's third biggest market in Europe.
Fashion brand McGregor will be returning to the streets in Belgium and the Netherlands. The label is about to open six stores in the two countries in the coming autumn.
Retailers who attend a RetailDetail event can now enjoy a discount to the ticket price. Register now and come to RetailDetail Day 2019, the RetailDetail Food Congress or the legendary Night at a reduced rate.
RetailDetail and the retailhub will be moving by the end of this year to Shopping Stadsfeestzaal in Antwerp's famous shopping street De Meir. The whole project just became a lot more concrete: now that the keys have been handed over, decoration can begin.
