Retail

Bloomberg Europe’s retail crisis is spreading from bricks-and-mortar stores to e-commerce as Asos Plc plunged the most in 4 1/2 years after warning that Christmas shopping got off to a disastrous start. The gloomy update from a UK online retailer that competes with Amazon.com Inc. and has furnished fashions to the likes of Meghan Markle shows that retail weakness is …

Bloomberg In 2014, when Instacart Inc. was a younger grocery-delivery startup, Whole Foods was its first major relationship—Instacart’s debut national retail partner and an investor as well. A lot has changed since then. Amazon.com Inc. now owns Whole Foods and runs its own delivery service. So the startup and grocery chain are splitting up for good. Instacart said it will …

Bloomberg Hennes & Mauritz AB reported its fastest quarterly sales growth in three years, though analysts said the big question is how much the struggling Swedish retailer cut prices on clothes to clear excess inventory. The shares fell in Stockholm trading. Revenue rose 12 percent to 56.4 billion kronor ($6.2 billion) in the three months through November, according to a …

Bloomberg LVMH is betting $2.6 billion that consumers who spend $1,000 on a Louis Vuitton bag will splash out for a $2,000-a-night hotel on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. The French luxury giant agreed to buy Belmond Ltd., owner of New York’s ‘21’ Club and high-end resorts around the world. The transaction is LVMH’s largest since taking full control of Christian Dior …

Bloomberg Canada Goose Holdings Inc. is delaying the opening of its flagship store in Beijing, as escalating tensions between China and Canada triggered by the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co.’s finance chief threaten its ambitions in the world’s second largest economy. The Toronto-based maker of premium parkas said on its Weibo account that it was postponing the store’s debut, scheduled …

Bloomberg Former employees of Kellogg Co. are suing the company. Their claims? They allege the cereal giant shouldn’t have sued them earlier this year. And why did Kellogg go after its employees in the first place?Well, for suing the company, of course. This complicated conflict, slated for hearings before arbitrators in February, is emblematic of the new world faced by …

Bloomberg Fashion label Tory Burch is bringing on Pierre-Yves Roussel, a long-time executive at LVMH, as its new chief executive officer as the brand’s eponymous founder steps down from the role. Roussel ran the French luxury conglomerate’s fashion businesses, which include such brands as Celine, Givenchy and Loewe, until he left earlier this year. He will step into his new …

Bloomberg Whole Foods Market, hailed for its high standards for healthy food, ranked worst in a study of five major US grocery chains for chemicals it uses in packaging at its popular hot-food section. In response, the company said it has removed all the coated paper products in question and has started a search for new biodegradable packaging. The study …

Bloomberg For many years, FreshDirect has ruled the online grocery business in New York. In a city where most people don’t own cars, the company prospered by delivering a broad selection of fresh food to New Yorkers’ stoops and front lobbies. Families from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side came to rely on FreshDirect’s prepared meals, which were a snap …

Bloomberg Sears Holdings Corp. is shopping around its stores, looking to gauge what they’re worth in the open market while it weighs Chairman Eddie Lampert’s $4.6 billion bid to buy the entire chain and keep it open. The firm has hired real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. to market its portfolio of about 500 US stores and so far …