Alibaba saw its turnover climb 35 % in the past fiscal year, beating its own forecasts by a landslide. The coronavirus crisis pushed the platform's total sales over a trillion dollars, a record.

Now that a recession is looming as a result of the corona virus outbreak, discount chain Lidl wants to sharpen its price image. The retailer has decided to rearrange its international purchasing department.

Apcoa wants to turn its European network of car parks into distribution centres, where parcels are put into cargo bikes for deliveries in city centres. These should profit from a reduction in congestion and pollution.

The collapse of wholesale sales have cut Urban Outfitters' turnover back by almost a third in this year's first quarter. A healthy profit made way for a nine-figure loss, forcing yet another company to cut management wages and bonuses.

Despite a growth in food sales, Marks & Spencer saw its profits drop 21.2 % last year. The coronavirus crisis makes tough measures necessary, but also opens opportunities.

As social media turn into shopping channels more and more, Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg is eager to cash in. Hence the introduction of Facebook Shops, which allows retailers and brands to start their own webshop on Instagram or Facebook.

Walmart saw its online sales increase 74 % during the coronavirus crisis, resulting in comparable sales growth of 10 %. Still, the American retail giant has decided to shut down its online branch Jet.com.

Amazon is rumoured to be interested in acquiring (a part of) American department store chain JCPenney, which has been granted protection against creditors and is currently looking for a solution for its deep financial problems.

Alliances between large food retailers do not have a harmful impact on agricultural prices, nor do they cause higher sales prices to consumers, a new research report by the European Commission concludes.

German department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof may close up to half of its stores and cut 5,000 jobs in the wake of the coronacrisis. However, the move proves quite controversial, with fears of abuse looming.

Amazon can get back to work in France: the online retailer has reached an agreement with the unions on a phased restart of its distribution centres, after five weeks of inactivity.

Ingka Centres, owner of shopping centres and part of the Ikea Group, wants to enter the American market. The real estate company is in talks to refurbish properties on central locations in major American cities.

In "the new normal", luxury items turn out to be significantly more expensive: at Chanel and Louis Vuitton for example, prices for handbags have risen by up to 17 % since the lockdown. Price hikes are taking place almost all over the world, but China might just be spared.

FMCG giant PepsiCo has launched a 'virtual pantry' in the United States: the producer of soft drinks, potato crisps and more now also supplies directly to consumers via two webshops.

Le Pain Quotidien's American locations have a new owner: Aurify Brands, manager of fast food restaurants, will become master franchiser and will therefore manage the formula separately from the Belgian group.

As Ceconomy (the owner of the MediaMarkt and Saturn chains) was forced to close its stores for a while due to the corona crisis, it suffered huge quarterly losses and had to ask for state aid in Germany.

Daniel Kretinsky, the Czech billionaire who has a large stake in European retailers Casino and Metro, has taken a strategic stake of 5 % of the shares of American department store chain Macy's.

Department stores and shopping centres of over 40,000 sqm in the Île-de-France region around Paris, like Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, have to remain closed until at least 10 July.

A group of fashion designers and luxury labels and department stores calls for a thorough reform of the fashion industry in an open letter. More than ever there is the need for a simpler and more sustainable fashion business, Dries Van Noten says.

Belgian bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien is working on a 'Pain Quotidien bis': it is in the midst of insolvency proceedings and is handing over its American and British branches via master franchising.

German Henkel saw its sales decline slightly because of the coronavirus crisis, as hair salons and automobile manufacturers were forced to close. The soap and washing powder category did perform well, so much so that the Persil manufacturer increased its soap supply by 30 %.

Puma has seen its profits fall by nearly 62 % in the first quarter, while its revenue only fell by 1.3 %. E-commerce managed to save part of the sports brand's performance, but it looks like worse is yet to come.

Schwarz Group, the parent company of German discounter Lidl, is launching its own cloud services, which will compete directly with Amazon's Web Services. The distribution group already has Rewe and Siemens as customers, and now wants to turn its IT services into a strategic branch of the company.

French dairy giant Danone has launched a 'Plant-Based Acceleration Unit', which should push its plant-based turnover from two to five billion euros by 2025.

Swedish retailer H&M has seen sales fall by as much as 57 % in local currency since the beginning of March, as online sales growth was impressive - but insufficient to compensate for closed stores. Inventories, meanwhile, continue to build up.

As Belgian stores were allowed to reopen today, the image is rather mixed: some chains (like Ikea) saw hours-long queues, others remained almost completely empty.

Victoria's Secret owner L Brands has announced that the deal with Sycamore Partners, on the sale of a majority stake in the lingerie brand, has been called off. This avoids a bitter legal battle between the two parties.

Belgian fashion group FNG wants to delay payments of interests and debts of its bonds, causing concerns and speculations as its CEO Dieter Penninckx has suddenly left as well.

The coronavirus has had a real impact on European retail: sales dropped 10.4 % in general, and even 21.3 % for non-food products in March alone.

Despite the closure of its largest customers, Beyond Meat's quarterly sales grew by no less than 141 % to 97 million dollars (90 million euros). This summer, the producer of meat substitutes plans an aggressive growth strategy.

Even Zalando is suffering from the corona crisis: although the fashion webshop still expects a double-digit growth, its expectations are now much lower than at the beginning of the year.

As expected, AB InBev was hit hard by the corona crisis in the first quarter. However, this only seems to be the beginning of more misery for the brewer, as the April figures show that the damage will be much greater in the second quarter.