General
In France, Black Friday will be delayed by one week: Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire is asking for the sales event to be postponed. Retailers agree on the condition that all stores are allowed to reopen.
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Both retailers and consumers predict the festive season to be full of discounts and e-commerce. But will it also be the usual peak time for retail? There is low confidence in having a sales boost this Christmas.
The trial project set up by discount chain Action with pick-up points did not prove to be a triumph: the retailer puts sales in its physical stores first and focusses on expansion.
Amazon wants to make contactless in-garage deliveries available to more people. The company is expanding its so-called 'Key by Amazon In-Garage Delivery service' to more than 4,000 American cities.
The corona crisis has, at best, slowed down the growth of Action, but has not been able to stop it. Over the past twelve months, the discounter has opened another 115 branches.
Singles Day, the yearly bargain festival of Chinese web shop Alibaba, has once again become a great commercial success. A total of 498 billion yuan (almost 64 billion euros) worth of goods were traded.
According to the European Commission, Amazon is in breach of competition rules. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager argues that the web giant uses data from third-party sellers on the marketplace to favour its own business.
With Strand in New York and Shakespeare & Co in Paris, two of the most iconic bookshops in the world are in danger of disappearing. Because of the corona crisis, customers are staying away.
Is a bargain event like Black Friday a good idea during this coronavirus pandemic? Dutch retail workers are calling out 'not to put public health on sale', French retailers are even asking for a ban.
Intermarché, Auchan and Carrefour facilitate access to their digital platforms and pick-up points for small independent retailers affected by the new lockdown. They are doing this out of solidarity, but also out of self-interest, of course.
In the third quarter, Alibaba again exceeded expectations, supported by growing e-commerce and the termination of the lockdown in China.
Sainsbury's is going to close 420 branches of non-food subsidiary Argos and remove all its service counters for meat and fish from supermarkets. The operation threatens 3,500 jobs.
John Lewis will cut 1,500 jobs at his head office. The redundancies are part of a major savings plan to make the British department store chain profitable again.
For the first time in 94 years, iconic department store chain Marks & Spencer reports a loss: profits in the past six months have been below zero. Yet there are also signs of recovery.
The corona crisis is also hitting department store chain Hema, which has therefore already written off some 100 million euro. The impact of the pandemic will continue to be felt in the years to come, expects the retailer, who nevertheless managed to halve its loss.
Alibaba's annual 11.11 Singles Day festival this year stretches over not one but two weekends. From 1 to 3 November, the Chinese already had the chance to make bargains, this time with an extra lot of Western brands.
