Retail

Bloomberg Home Depot Inc. saw sales surge in the wake of this year’s barrage of hurricanes, but the storms still took a toll on the Atlanta-based retailer’s bottom line. Even as cleanup and rebuilding efforts helped the chain’s sales top analysts’ estimates, expenses related to the storms reduced operating profit by $51 million. Customers stocked up on less profitable plywood …

Bloomberg Ikea, the Swedish flat-pack furniture empire, has become one of the few retailers to quantify the financial effects of Brexit. Costs at Ikea UK, which is heavily reliant on imports, jumped by 13.7 percent in the year through August, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. That increase was driven by the drop in sterling after last year’s …

Bloomberg JD.com Inc., the operator of China’s second-biggest online mall, reported a surprise quarterly profit as investments in logistics and new arenas such as fashion attracted shoppers. Net income was $152 million in the three months ended in September, the Beijing-based company said on Monday. That compares with the 114.1 million yuan loss expected by analysts. Sales for the quarter …

Bloomberg UK shoppers are in a sorry state. Visa’s UK consumer spending index fell 2 percent last month, a decline that was the quickest since September 2013 and “driven by a sustained reduction in high street expenditure.” A separate report from the British Retail Consortium showed shoppers’ footfall decreased 2 percent on an annual basis in the month, the biggest …

Bloomberg As brick-and-mortar retailers struggle to remain relevant in the new world of e-commerce, they’re hiring fewer seasonal workers. That’s according to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., which shows October employment gains fell 8 percent from last year—a result of fewer hiring announcements from companies like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The report shows that seasonal retail hiring has …

Bloomberg Burberry Group Plc’s long-awaited strategy update from its new boss failed to convince investors, who sent the shares tumbling the most in five years on concern the trench-coat maker is sacrificing future earnings to sharpen the brand’s image. The shares fell as much as 14 percent after Chief Executive Officer Marco Gobbetti said the London-based company will add accessories …

Bloomberg About a half-hour south of Paris, a uniquely American import has opened for business. The store’s aisles brim with beauty and bulk, side by side. One-kilogram (2.2 pound) wheels of Mont D’Or cheese sit near $5,509 Breitling watches. The Yanks demand that the locals fork over an annual fee of $42 just to walk in the door. France, meet …

Bloomberg Tiffany & Co. is hoping its customers will pay $1,000 for a tin can. Well, it’s not a real tin can—it just looks like one. The container is actually made of sterling silver and vermeil, with a touch of Tiffany’s signature robin’s-egg blue in an enamel accent. This is Tiffany, after all. The can is one item in a …

Bloomberg UK retail sales fell the most in seven months in October, indicating continued caution among consumers just before the crucial Christmas shopping season. The British Retail Consortium said sales fell 1 percent on a like-for-like basis and were up just 0.2 percent in total terms. In a separate report, Barclaycard said annual growth in household spending slowed to 2.4 …

Bloomberg Etsy Inc. kept its word to investors and eked out a small boost in its growth rate by luring more shoppers and getting them to spend more on its site for unique, small-batch goods. Gross merchandise sales, the total value of goods that pass through Etsy’s platforms, grew 13 percent to $766.4 million in the third quarter—bigger than the …