Retail

Bloomberg Consumer spending declined in March as concerns over Brexit and the late timing of the Easter holiday held back shoppers. Total retail sales decreased by 0.5 percent, compared to a 2.3 percent gain a year earlier when the holiday was in March, the British Retail Consortium and KPMG said. That’s below the three- and 12-month averages. On a like-for-like ...

Bloomberg Burger King is the latest brand to spark criticism on social media with an ad depicting diners struggling to eat western food with chopsticks. The fast-food chain showed a video clip of diners trying to eat its new “Vietnamese Sweet Chilli Tendercrisp Burger” with large red chopsticks. Social media users say the ad, which was posted on Instagram, is ...

Bloomberg Billionaire Mike Ashley made a fresh bid to prevent a wipeout of his equity in Debenhams Plc, offering to underwrite the issuance of 150 million pounds ($196 million) in new shares. The chief executive officer of Sports Direct International Plc said his support for the shareholder rights issue is conditional on him being named CEO of the department-store chain, ...

Bloomberg A $2.5 billion spending spree involving more than two dozen deals provides some insight into how Mukesh Ambani is piecing together a strategy to take on Amazon.com in India. Asia’s richest man is sharpening his focus on e-commerce with a string of tiny acquisitions and stake purchases to face the world’s largest online retailer, after shaking up India’s telecommunications ...

Bloomberg Selling “a rich man’s sauce at a poor man’s price” has made David Tran a very wealthy man. The 73-year-old Vietnamese refugee is responsible for bringing Sriracha to American consumers. After settling in Los Angeles in 1979, Tran founded Huy Fong Foods Inc, named for the Huey Fong boat that brought him to the US, and started making hot ...

Bloomberg Just like some millennials, the new Sears is counting on a hand from their parents. Baby boomers are the ticket to luring in the coveted group of young consumers, who are currently in the process of starting households and loading up on appliances, beds and other staples, according to Peter Boutros, the company’s chief brand officer and president of ...

Bloomberg Tennis star Naomi Osaka surprised industry watchers by signing an endorsement deal with Nike Inc, switching from the US sports brand’s biggest rival, Adidas AG. The sports world had been anticipating that Adidas would pay a record sum to renew a clothing endorsement with No. 1-ranked Osaka, who seized global media attention by defeating Serena Williams at the US ...

Bloomberg Alarmed at Amazon.com’s rapid growth in Europe, grocers are considering fighting back with the help of a tiny Portuguese startup. Sensei, a 16-month-old technology company based in Lisbon that’s backed by Germany’s Metro AG and Portugal’s Sonae SGPS SA, is pitching its technology to European supermarkets as they race the e-commerce giant to open the region’s first checkoutless stores. ...

Bloomberg Investors shouldn’t fret over the growing list of departing Walmart Inc executives who were involved in tech and innovation, according to Bernstein. Recent departures do not imperil Walmart’s future because “the people Walmart needs to be innovators were never the ones coming from outside,” analyst Brandon Fletcher wrote in a note. Outsiders with their “worldview” aren’t helpful to Walmart ...

Bloomberg Target Corp is boosting its minimum starting wage for the third time in as many years, distancing itself from rival Walmart Inc in a tight labour market. The cheap-chic retailer will move to $13 an hour in June, providing tens of thousands of workers a raise, the company said, without specifying exactly how many staffers would benefit. This follows ...