Retail

Bloomberg Ceconomy AG, Europe’s biggest consumer-electronics retailer, eliminated its dividend and warned that earnings will decline another year in the retail industry’s latest disaster. The stock fell as much as 16 percent to a record low as the departure of Chief Financial Officer Mark Frese leaves the company facing a leadership void. The 54-year-old executive, who has been helping to ...

Bloomberg Williams-Sonoma Inc. sued Amazon.com Inc. in a case that challenges the online retailer’s private label push that started with batteries, baby wipes and phone chargers and has expanded to include clothing, toys and high-end furniture. Amazon’s “Rivet” line includes products that are “strikingly similar” to Williams-Sonoma’s West Elm brand, including a $300 orb chair the household goods maker introduced ...

Bloomberg Bonds of UK retailers extended declines as the industry’s crisis deepens in the run-up to the Christmas holiday. New Look Retail Group Ltd.’s 700 million pounds ($886 million) of notes due in July 2022 fell for a 16th day to about 46 pence, the lowest in six months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The British fashion chain is ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc.’s shadow looms large over most US retailers this holiday season, but the online giant could prove to be bright spot for Best Buy Co. Two of the top five best-selling televisions on Amazon are models sold on Best Buy’s new storefront on Amazon, which the companies unveiled over the summer. The TVs come equipped with Amazon’s Fire ...

Bloomberg Lego A/S wants to make sure any plastic toy figurine unwrapped in an American home during the holidays isn’t what the toymaker calls a copycat of its own products. The Danish toymaker is asking a federal judge in Connecticut to prevent Zuru Toys Inc. from selling some of its Max Build More and Mayka lines of construction toys at ...

Bloomberg Burberry Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Marco Gobbetti and star designer Riccardo Tisci may be the saviors who finally deliver on the UK trench-coat maker’s long-promised turnaround. Analysts aren’t buying it yet. Burberry is running neck and neck with Hermes International for the dubious distinction of being the lowest ranked by analysts among Europe’s 10 biggest luxury and apparel ...

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 ...