Retail

Bloomberg Pandora A/S said the US retail market remained challenging for its physical stores last quarter, but pointed to an improved performance in online sales. Revenue grew 16 percent in the Americas last quarter from a year earlier, the Copenhagen-based company said. In local currency, Pandora saw a 27% increase. “Growth was supported by the acquisition of franchise stores in ...

Bloomberg The Amazon-fuelled grocery price war may have finally arrived. News that Amazon.com will start offering two-hour delivery from Whole Foods stores in four US cities has the food world buzzing that competition is about to heat up in an industry that survives on razor-thin margins. In the six months since Amazon acquired the organic grocer, the e-commerce giant has ...

Bloomberg Avon Products Inc named its first male chief executive officer in almost two decades, appointing Unilever veteran Jan Zijderveld to succeed Sheri McCoy as the cosmetics seller seeks to revive its business outside the US. Zijderveld, the Anglo-Dutch consumer-product giant’s European president, joins the door-to-door makeup seller after it split off its declining US business and moved its headquarters ...

Bloomberg How can regional startups compete with Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in the cloud-storage space? Look for small clients, speak Spanish, and snap up your peers, according to one CEO. Diego Cabezudo, co-founder and chief executive officer of Spain’s Gigas Hosting SA, believes his company’s model of helping customers develop their cloud infrastructure, and doing so in their local ...

Bloomberg As the UK forces companies to disclose the gap between men’s and women’s pay, the country’s biggest private employer is confronted with a massive demand from workers feeling short-changed. Supermarket chain Tesco Plc has been presented with claims that law firm Leigh Day says could eventually total as much as 4 billion pounds ($5.6 billion). The firm contends that ...

Bloomberg And just like that, another Internet giant is stepping into health care. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said it’s teaming up with AstraZeneca Plc in an effort to improve health services in China, the UK-based drugmaker’s second-largest market. Coming just days after a pledge by Amazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to collaborate on new approaches ...

Bloomberg Unilever is rolling out new products such as Dove shower foam to boost sales as it struggles to raise prices on longtime mainstays like Hellmann’s mayonnaise. The Anglo-Dutch consumer-product giant introduced five new brands in its personal-care division in 2017, including Hijab Fresh, a hand and body lotion aimed at Muslim consumers, and soaps formulated for babies. That helped ...

Bloomberg Tesco Plc named Booker Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Charles Wilson to lead its British and Irish operations, elevating a potential successor for the leading role at the UK’s biggest retailer. The appointment of Wilson, 51, creates a strong No. 2 to CEO Dave Lewis. Before engineering a $5.2 billion sale to Tesco, Wilson transformed the food and drink ...

Bloomberg Estee Lauder Cos.’s online sales and China push are helping maintain its growth streak. The New York-based seller of Clinique and Aveda products saw sales surge across most of its brands in the latest quarter, with skin care, makeup and fragrances all posting double-digit gains. Revenue advanced on a regional level too, led by a 33 percent climb in ...

Bloomberg As short sellers swoop on Marks & Spencer Group Plc, value investors are pinning their hopes on a man with a history of turning around struggling businesses. Archie Norman, 63, a former lawmaker who joined the iconic British retailer as chairman in September, is credited with leading the Asda supermarket chain from near bankruptcy in the early 1990s to ...