Retail

Bloomberg American meatpackers are benefiting from one bright spot in the restaurant industry during the pandemic: fast-food sales. With most restaurants closed or operating at reduced capacity, customers have flocked to places including McDonald’s and Burger King, where they can simply drive through to grab food. That’s helped Cargill Inc.’s protein sales to food-services business to return to near normal, ...

Bloomberg US holiday season sales beat low expectations for the pandemic year as online shopping surged. Total retail sales grew 3% over the extended 75-day holiday period, versus a forecast of 2.4%, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks online and in-store retail sales across all payment methods. The number is far better than the 3.5% drop recorded during 2008, the ...

Bloomberg Japanese retail sales resumed falling and Tokyo consumer prices slid the most in a decade amid slumping energy costs and record virus cases that kept shoppers home and darken the recovery outlook. Retail sales fall 2% in November from the prior month, as consumers continued to cut back on apparel purchases, the economy ministry reported. Analysts had forecast an ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com says it will delay raising fees it charges independent sellers to store and ship items until June, a gesture to merchants who have sometimes bristled at the rising costs of doing business with the company. In a blog post to sellers, Jeff Wilke, the outgoing chief executive officer of Amazon’s retail unit, noted that other logistics companies have ...

Bloomberg An Indian court allowed Amazon.com Inc to oppose Future Group’s $3.4 billion asset sale to Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate but left it to local regulators to decide on the deal, in a mixed ruling for the US giant fighting Asia’s richest man for dominance in one of the world’s largest retail markets. The Delhi High Court said on Monday it ...

Bloomberg Nike Inc gained in late trading after second-quarter revenue and profit topped Wall Street’s expectations, bolstered by e-commerce sales and rebounding growth in China. Sales rose 8.9% to $11.2 billion in the quarter ended on November 30, the athleticwear company reported. Analysts had projected $10.6 billion. Earnings grew to 78 cents a share, compared with a 62-cent estimate. The ...

Bloomberg Celebrating the holidays might be pretty ho-hum, but one area that’s booming is toys. After a terrible year of remote school, cancelled birthday parties and little vacationing, parents and grandparents ridden with so-called “Covid guilt” are spending a lot more on puzzles, crafts and games. And this is setting up the US industry for its best Christmas in years—and ...

Bloomberg Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) and Zara owner Inditex both reported that an improvement in sales stalled in the autumn as a new round of Covid-19 lockdowns led consumers to curb spending on clothes. From late October through November, H&M’s sales fell 22% from a year earlier, the Swedish retailer said on Tuesday. Spanish rival Inditex reported a revenue decline ...

Bloomberg Nestle’s organic sales should grow this year on average at roughly the same pace as last year, according to Chief Executive Officer Mark Schneider. The world’s largest food maker generates some 90% of its revenue from in-home consumption, which has benefited from lockdown and social-distancing measures, Schneider said on Swiss television program Bilanz Standpunkte on SRF 1. On the ...

Bloomberg China’s antitrust watchdog fined Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and a Tencent Holdings Ltd unit over a pair of years-old acquisitions and said it’s reviewing an impending Tencent-led merger, signalling Beijing’s intention to tighten oversight of internet sector deals. The State Administration for Market Regulation said it’s reviewing the combination of DouYu International Holdings Ltd with Huya Inc, which could ...